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• Krannert Center performance highlights success of local couple

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Krannert Center for the Performing Arts »
Address: 500 S. Goodwin Ave. Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-6700
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Foellinger Auditorium »
Address: 709 S. Matthews Ave. Urbana, IL 61801
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On Thursday, Sept. 17, some of opera’s highest of stars will grace Urbana’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts as a part of the Foellinger Great Hall series. None other than local baritone Nathan Gunn, there is far more to this story than simply the appearance of a world class singer.

To begin, there are three musical stars appearing that evening — Nathan, his wife Julie, who serves as his pianist, orchestrator and arranger, and world class soprano Yvonne Gonzales Redman. The three are all University of Illinois faculty members, but don’t consider the event a simple faculty recital. Redman and the Gunns are world class musicians with a strong local identity. Despite their considerable credentials, the three live in the community and teach at the University. Meanwhile, Nathan and Julie are also University of Illinois graduates.

After graduating the University in 1994, Nathan began a career that would take him to many of the great opera houses and recitals of the world, with an abridged resume that includes appearances at opera houses in Paris and Seattle, Chicago’s Lyric, London’s Covent Garden, New York’s Metropolitan,

and Britain’s Glyndebourne Festival. In addition to song recitals, he has also played operatic roles ranging from the title role in Britten’s “Billy Budd,” and Valentin in Gounod’s “Faust,” to the Count in “The Marriage of Figaro,” and such modern characters as Clyde in the operatic treatment of “An American Tragedy” and Buzz Aldrin in “Man on the Moon.”

Gunn appears on three DVDs and has more than a dozen albums to his name. His most recent recordings have taken his elegant baritone voice into the cross-over category with such modern recordings as “American Anthem” and “Just Before Sunrise.” With such fame, one would expect to find the Gunn family in New York, or London, but as of 2007, both Nathan and Julie are University of Illinois School of Music faculty members who reside in Champaign-Urbana.

Julie will accompany Nathan on Sept. 17, and her skill on the piano is as renowned as his voice. Add soprano Yvonne Gonzales Redman to the mix, and this evening of song from Prokofiev, Ibert, Lerner and Lowe, William Bolcom, Tom Waits, and Sting may well be one the major musical events of the year.