Join us for a special performance of “Carmina Burana”

April 5, 7:30 pm, at Portsmouth High School Auditorium — Buy Tickets!
April 6, 3:00 pm, at Exeter High School Auditorium — Buy Tickets!
Priscilla Stevens French, Conductor
Adelyn Nelson and Kathy Fink, piano
Portsmouth High School percussion ensemble
Maggie Finnegan, soprano
Neil Ferreira, tenor
Will Prapestis, baritone
Safe Haven Ballet, Lissa Curtis, Artistic Director
The Soloists

GRAMMY® nominated soprano Maggie Finnegan has been hailed by Opera News for her “bright coloratura” and “finely tuned high soprano” and The Washington Post for her “silvery, pitch-perfect voice.” Maggie has performed with Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Parallele, Odyssey Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the MIT Media Lab, Experiments in Opera, the Belgian National Orchestra, Andriessenfest, Vancouver Symphony, White Snake Projects, PyeongChang Winter Music Festival, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Mass Opera, New England Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Catalyst New Music, Sparks and Wiry Cries, Beth Morrison Projects and the Center for Contemporary Opera. Awards include the S&R Foundation’s 2017 Washington Award, First Place in the Washington International Competition for Voice and second place in The American Prize for Women in Opera. Please visit Maggie at maggiefinnegansoprano.com

Lauded for his “resonant clarity and vibrant expressiveness” and his “subtle and refined” singing, baritone Will Prapestis appears frequently as a soloist and ensemble member in the U.S. and Europe. He has had the pleasure of singing as a soloist and chorister with Emmanuel Music, Renaissance Men — of which he is a founding member — Boston Baroque, Carmel Bach Festival, West Virginia Symphony, Odyssey Opera, Cappella Clausura, Exsultemus, BEMF, Labyrinth Choir, Sound Icon, Upper Valley Baroque, Cantata Singers, Sound Icon, Monadnock Music Festival, Augmented, Orpheus Singers, Copley Singers, and the Fredonia College Choir. Recently, Will was a featured soloist with Emmanuel Music at Bachfest Leipzig 2024. He was a Virginia Best Adams Fellow at the 2019 Carmel Bach Festival and was also the 2019-2020 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow. Will is also a very busy bass player, thoroughly active in the Boston and New York City Pop Music scenes, performing with as many as five bands as a bass guitarist, vocalist, writer, and arranger. He is also a highly-sought session artist. Will is a native of Elmira, NY, and he earned his Bachelor of Music in Performance at SUNY Fredonia. www.renmenmusic.com

Neal Ferreira is a nationally recognized lyric tenor known for his dynamic stage presence and cultivated vocalism. Dubbed a “Boston mainstay” by the Boston Globe, he recently appeared with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project as the French Ambassador/Kruger in their Gershwin double bill Of Thee I Sing/Let ‘Em Eat Cake and with Boston Lyric Opera as Loud Stone inMatthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, conducted by the composer. The tenor regularly sings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and returned in January 2025 as Gaston in Die tote Stadt. This summer, he will sing Spoletta in Tosca with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, under the baton of Maestro Andris Nelsons.
Mr. Ferreira’s theatrical engagements in the 2024-25 season have included Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Il Conte di Lerma in Don Carlo with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Alpheus/Ares in Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata with Odyssey Opera. On the concert stage, Ferreira appeared as the tenor soloist in Elijah with the Assabet Valley Mastersingers, Carmina Burana with Portsmouth Pro Musica & Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Boston Civic Symphony.
In a professional career spanning two decades, Ferreira has appeared with an array of companies including Florida Grand Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Colorado, Virginia Opera, Anchorage Opera, Syracuse Opera, American Repertory Theatre, Handel and Haydn Society, Emmanuel Music, and Guerilla Opera. He is a proud student of internationally renowned tenor, Frank Lopardo. In addition to performing, Mr. Ferreira serves on the Voice faculty at Berklee College of Music.