Program Notes | Paquito D’Rivera with New Jersey Symphony

Daniel Freiberg
Born: 1957 in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Composed: 2014–15
World Premiere: September 18, 2015, in Cologne; Wayne Marshall conducted the WDR Funkhausorchester Köln. Andy Miles was the soloist
Duration: 20 minutes
Instrumentation: two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (suspended cymbal, tam tam, Argentine bombo legüero, marimba, vibraphone, crash cymbals), harp, jazz quintet (piano, bass, drum set, solo clarinet) and strings

New York-based Daniel Freiberg is a multi-talented musician who composes, arranges and produces. As a child in Buenos Aires, he studied classical piano while simultaneously absorbing the musical languages that surrounded him: Argentinian tango, Uruguayan and Peruvian folk music, Brazilian samba and the popular music of rock’n’roll. In high school he discovered jazz through an introduction to the music of Dave Brubeck. The impact changed Freiberg’s life and, at age 21, he relocated to New York.

In the Big Apple, Freiberg honed his skills through study of jazz arranging and film scoring with jazz professionals, also working professionally as a performer. At Juilliard, he studied composition, orchestration and contemporary music. Freiberg spent five years touring with Paquito D’Rivera’s quintet as pianist, playing major jazz festivals and clubs throughout North America and Europe.

Latin American Chronicles was commissioned by the WDR Cologne Radio Orchestra. A three-movement jazz concerto, it consolidates the diverse influences that have shaped Freiberg’s musical evolution and serves as a catalyst for the improvisatory genius of Paquito D’Rivera. The composer’s note follows.

Latin American Chronicles fuses the languages of classical, Latin American music and jazz. These are idioms that have surrounded me since my early years in my native Buenos Aires and through my adulthood in New York City. My concerto consists of three movements.

I. “Panorámicas,” built on South American folk rhythms, takes on a cinematic feel as it suggests a bird’s eye view of the valleys and mountains of Argentina and Chile. The middle solo cadenza is opened to the improvisatory expressions of the featured soloist. The end of the movement soars to emotional new heights.

II. “Diálogos” is slow and passionate... a conversation between man and Pachamama [Mother Earth]. The main theme was inspired by the musical traditions of the Andean mountains.

III. “Influencias” is a celebration of different cultures coming together in music. Here, an Afro-Peruvian theme becomes an exuberant New York jazz explosion with plenty of space for improvisation and fun.

I think of Latin American Chronicles as a personal album, told in music.

Freiberg’s concerto shows an admirable mastery of traditional orchestra augmented with jazz instruments. He uses ostinato rhythms in the first movement as a propellant to soaring themes. The music has cinematic sweep; its solo line maximizes the clarinet’s flexibility and wide range. Diálogos shows off Freiberg’s gift for atmospheric writing. The dialogues involve many instruments, including a gorgeous duet for cello and piano, presently joined by the solo clarinet. Influencias’ main theme is an Afro-Peruvian waltz that later develops using the chacarera, which has roots in Argentinian rural folk dance. Its lively rhythms are generally in 6/8 or 3/4. Freiberg switches between both meters, introducing hand-clapping to punctuate his rhythms and augment the sound palette. This finale includes ample opportunity for ad lib improvisation and makes for irresistible listening.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer)
Born: January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria
Died: December 5, 1791, in Vienna, Austria

Paquito D’Rivera (arranger)
Born: June 4, 1948, in Havana, Cuba

Composed: Mozart wrote his Clarinet Concerto in September and October 1791. Paquito D’Rivera made his arrangement of the Adagio movement in 1977
World Premiere: October 16, 1791, in Prague. D’Rivera’s version was premiered in 1977.
Duration: 5 minutes
Instrumentation: two flutes, two bassoons, two horns, trombone, jazz quintet (piano, jazz guitar, electric bass, drum set, solo clarinet) and strings

D’Rivera’s Adagio, based on the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, is a loving tribute that celebrates the timeless beauty of Mozart’s theme. It also demonstrates how such a melody can time-travel to the 20th century as a vehicle for variation and improvisation. The classic simplicity of the 18th-century original provides a sturdy framework for embellishment by a jazz master. D’Rivera’s sly cadenza quotes briefly from several other Mozart compositions, revealing the depth of his knowledge of classical music—and a marvelous sense of humor.

George Gershwin
Born: September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York
Died: July 11, 1937, in Beverly Hills, California

Paquito D’Rivera (arranger)
Born: June 4, 1948, in Havana, Cuba

Composed: 1924 for Rhapsody in Blue; 1935 for Porgy and Bess; 1930 for “But Not For Me”; Paquito D’Rivera crafted his medley in 1993
World Premiere: Venezuela, 1998 or 1999
Duration: 23 minutes
Instrumentation: two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes (second doubling English horn), three clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bells, tom toms, wood block, xylophone, snare drum, cymbal), jazz quintet (solo clarinet doubling solo alto saxophone, piano, drumset, electric bass), soprano and strings

Paquito D’Rivera is a Cuban clarinetist, saxophonist and composer. His father was a classical saxophonist and Paquito’s first teacher. The boy was a musical prodigy, performing on stage and for radio and TV starting at age six. He studied at Havana’s Conservatory and founded his first band in 1961. Bandleader Leonardo Timor introduced D’Rivera to the arrangements of Woody Herman, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton and Count Basie, expanding his horizons. By the late 1960s, D’Rivera was touring in Eastern Europe with his Quinteto Cubano de Jazz. He defected from Cuba to Spain in 1980 and relocated permanently to the USA in 1981. D’Rivera has received multiple GRAMMY awards and was the first Latin musician to receive the NEA’s Jazz Master award.

He has a flexible and original approach to both harmony and rhythm. His works inhabit their own sound world, with modernist touches commingling effortlessly with the jazz and Cuban popular elements he has assimilated. D’Rivera’s music reflects myriad passions: jazz and swing, Cuban folk music, Argentinian tango and milonga, borderline atonal dissonance and good old-fashioned boogie-woogie. The resulting compositions are a feast for the senses, especially if you free your imagination.

D’Rivera’s Gershwin Medley is a four-movement suite that surveys several of Gershwin’s masterpieces, with an emphasis on the opera Porgy and Bess. It opens with the famous ascending clarinet scale and glissando from Rhapsody in Blue, then moves to the Prelude to the opera Porgy and Bess and its most famous number, the ballad “Summertime.” In addition to the soprano solo, a trumpet solo extemporizes a free variation, before a final verse featuring soprano and clarinet obbligato.

The second movement salutes “My Man’s Gone Now” from Porgy, a vehicle for the soprano. Next is “Bess You is My Woman Now,” featuring alto saxophone in a free rhapsody embellishing the tune. The soprano joins for Bess’s reply verse. A solo saxophone cadenza provides transition to the finale, quoting briefly from An American in Paris, “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” before an up-tempo rendition of “But Not For Me,” from the 1930 musical Girl Crazy. The spotlight is on the full quintet for this segment, with solos for each member. D’Rivera circles back seamlessly to a reprise of “Summertime” to close the medley.

Carlos Chávez
Born: June 13, 1899, in Mexico City, Mexico
Died: August 2, 1978, in Mexico City, Mexico
Composed: December 1935 to January 1936
World Premiere: January 23, 1936, in a radio broadcast. Chávez led the Columbia Broadcasting Orchestra. The first concert performance took place on April 10, 1936, in Boston. Chávez led the Boston Symphony
Duration: 12 minutes
Instrumentation: piccolo, three flutes (third doubling piccolo), three oboes, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, a huge percussion battery requiring four players (bass drum, claves, guïro, Indian drum, maracas, metal rattle, rasping stick, rattling string, side drum, soft rattle, suspended cymbal, tenor drum and xylophone), plus timpani, harp and strings

Chávez was a major figure in Mexican culture during the second quarter of the 20th century and remains one of the most important Latin American composers of recent times. “Sinfonía India” is his best-known composition, and the one that has promoted the notion of Chávez as a nationalist. In fact, the work is somewhat singular among his compositions, rather than being representative.

A one-movement symphony of approximately twelve minutes' duration, “Sinfonía India” takes its name from the ancient Indians of pre-Hispanic Mexico. Chávez had Indian blood on his mother's side and had regular contact with Mexican Indians and their culture from his earliest years. A pianist who was largely self-taught as a composer, he channeled an interest in his Indian roots into his music primarily during his early creative years, and particularly during the 1930s. This Symphony was written in 1935 for a CBS radio broadcast concert in New York City. Chávez incorporated themes from the Huichol Indians in the state of Nayarit and the Yaqui Indians in the state of Sonora; the finale makes use of a Seri Indian melody as well.

The symphony, a variant of sonata form essentially without development, makes extensive use of the pentatonic scale. Chávez also employs cross-rhythms, rapid meter changes and jolting syncopations that lend the “Sinfonia Indía” a peculiar pattern of its own. This distinctive rhythmic profile is enhanced by the composer's imaginative use of an expanded percussion section that draws heavily on exotic native instruments such as Yaqui drum and metal rattle, clay rattle, water gourd and Grijutian [a string of deer hooves]. These unusual percussion sounds are particularly effective in the thrilling ostinato coda.

Aaron Copland
Born: November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York
Died: December 2, 1990, in Tarrytown, New York
Composed: 1933–1936
World Premiere: August 27, 1937, in Mexico City
Duration: 11 minutes
Instrumentation: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (xylophone, crash cymbals, suspended cymbal, güiro , temple blocks, wood block, bass drum, snare drum and tambourin provençal), piano and strings

In 1932, during the height of the Great Depression, Aaron Copland traveled to Mexico at the invitation of the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez. Although he was staying in Tlaxcala, some 50 miles east of Mexico City, he visited the capital city regularly. Through a tourist guidebook, he learned of a dance hall called El Salón México that was patronized heavily by locals, many of whom danced barefoot. Copland and his companion, Victor Kraft, visited the place and got caught up in the bright colors, swirling and stomping people and vibrant music. They remained until the wee hours, closing it down at five o’clock the next morning.

Entranced by the driving rhythms and catchy melodies of indigenous Mexican folk tunes he heard at El Salón México; Copland determined to capture their magic in an original orchestral composition. His goal was to write a brilliant symphonic piece that everybody would love. For the raw material, he turned to two recently published collections of Mexican folk music. The resulting composition, also called El Salón México, became Copland’s first major popular and critical success, and remains one of his best-loved works.

Copland zeroes in on the alternation of 6/8 and 3/4 meter, a characteristic of the traditional Mexican huapango, adding additional rhythmic interest with the use of “La Jesusita,” a simple tune in 2/4. The introduction derives from “El Palo Verde” [“The Green Stick”]; later the bass clarinet and bassoon deliver a rendition of “El Mosco” [“The Fly”]. Copland adjusted these and other melodies to suit his needs, sometimes shifting their rhythm as well. His sinuous cadenzas for trumpet and clarinet add color and sensuality, as does the sparkling percussion.

Arturo Márquez
Born: December 20, 1950, in Álamos, Sonora, Mexico
Composed: 1994
World Premiere: 1994 in Mexico City
Duration: 10 minutes
Instrumentation: two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (claves, snare drum, large suspended cymbal, güiro, three tom-toms, bass drum), piano and strings

Arturo Márquez is a star among contemporary Mexican composers. He studied with many of Mexico's most prominent musicians, including Joaquín Gutiérrez Heras, Hector Quintanar, Federico Ibarra and Manuel Enríquez. Like most of his countrymen interested in pursuing a career in music, Márquez sought to broaden his horizons with study in Europe—in his case, France—and in the United States. His early works reflect a keen interest in avant-garde techniques such as electronic music, which he studied with the American composer Morton Subotnick, and mixed media works.

In Márquez’s more recent compositions, however, he has embraced Mexican folklore and tradition, melding urban sophistication with an attractive, accessible approach. Nowhere is this more evident than in his series of eight works with the title Danzón. The term denotes a Cuban dance genre that became popular by the late 19th century and remained entrenched in Latin ballroom music through the mid-20th century. It is related to the contradanza and the habanera, with syncopated rhythms in duple meter. Danzónes frequently have a recurrent refrain that gives the dance a rondo structure. The concluding segment generally ratchets up the energy level.

Marquez’s eight Danzónes are for various ensembles; several of them exist in versions for different instrumental combinations. Danzón No. 2, for example, may be performed by large mixed ensemble, symphonic band, or full orchestra as we hear it this evening. It was first performed in 1994 in Xalapa. The composer has written that the idea for this piece came to him while he was traveling to Malinalco with a painter, Andrés Fonseca, and a dancer, Irene Martínez. Both of them were experts in ballroom dancing and shared a special passion for the danzón. In observing them and hearing the music to which they danced, Márquez acquired a taste for the old recordings of Acerina and his Danzónera, a principal exponent of danzón in the 1950s. At the same time, Márquez says that he was absorbing the rhythms, forms and melodic twists of the danzón.

I discovered that the apparent lightness of the danzón hides a music full of sensuality and rigor, music that our old folks live with nostalgia and joy, a world that we can still grasp in the dance music of Veracruz and the dance halls of Mexico City. Danzón No. 2 is a tribute to this world that nurtured it. It tries to get as close as possible to the dance, to the nostalgic melodies, its rhythms. . . It is a personal way of expressing my admiration and feelings toward real popular music.

The piece was commissioned by the Music Department of Mexico's National University, and is dedicated to the composer's daughter, Lily Márquez.

José Pablo Moncayo
Born: June 29, 1912, in Guadalajara, Mexico
Died: June 16, 1958, in Mexico City, Mexico
Composed: 1941
World Premiere: August 15, 1941, in Mexico City. Carlos Chávez conducted
Duration: 7 minutes
Instrumentation: three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, claves, Indian drum, tambourine, xylophone, güiro, maracas, snare drum), harp and strings

A student of Mexico’s most important composer, Carlos Chávez, José Pablo Moncayo García was one of a group of four young musicians who changed the face of Mexican music in the first half of the 20th century. Under Chávez, who organized and conducted Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica from 1928 to 1949, Moncayo served first as the orchestra’s pianist, then as its percussionist. Eventually he became its subdirector, succeeding Chávez as artistic director in 1949. By the early 1950s, he had also achieved a substantial reputation as a composer.

Moncayo was a staunch nationalist who relished incorporating indigenous tunes and percussive elements into his music. He did so, however, with great respect for tradition; some have even called his music neoclassical. His best-known orchestral composition is Huapango, a joyous and uninhibited celebration of Mexican folk color. The French composer Darius Milhaud once observed to a Mexican friend, “When I want there to be sun in my apartment in the grey light of a Parisian winter, I listen to a recording of Huapango.” That characteristic—bringing sunlight and warmth to the atmosphere—was Moncayo’s gift.

His title comes from a traditional dance of northern Veracruz and neighboring Mexican states, popular with mariachi bands. Generally, the huapango combines two singers with violin, guitar and jarana, a Mexican guitar with five sets of double strings. The huapango may be related to both the Spanish fandango and the Huasteca region in east central Mexico. Either way, Moncayo’s music is irresistible: rich with melodies borrowed from Veracruzano folk songs and colored by details of an abundant percussion section that draws liberally on indigenous Mexican instruments.

Known for his charisma and expressive interpretations, Mexican conductor and GRAMMY-winner Carlos Miguel Prieto has established himself not just as a major figure in the orchestra world but also as an influential cultural leader, an educator, and a champion of new music. In a significant career development, he started his tenure as Music Director of the North Carolina Symphony at the beginning of the 2023–2024 season.

From 2007 to 2022, Prieto was the music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, the country’s leading ensemble, and significantly raised the caliber of the orchestra. He was also music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra from 2006 to 2023, where he helped lead the cultural renewal of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. He led the Louisiana Philharmonic to a successful Carnegie Hall debut and a GRAMMY in 2024. In 2008, he was appointed music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (OSM), which he led to a Latin GRAMMY-nomination for Best Classical Music Album and a GRAMMY award for Best Classical Composition. In 2023, Prieto led OSM in a highly successful tour of the United States, and in 2024 had a hugely impactful residence at Vail! Bravo.

Recent highlights include engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, The Spanish National Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Strasbourg Philharmonic and Auckland Philharmonia.

Prieto is in demand as a guest conductor with many of the top North American orchestras, including Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas, Toronto, Minnesota, Washington, New World and Houston. He has enjoyed a particularly successful relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony. In 2023, Prieto made his hugely successful BBC Proms debut at Royal Albert Hall, and at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2024.

Since 2002, Prieto has conducted the Orchestra of the Americas, which draws young musicians from the entire American continent. A staunch proponent of music education, Prieto served as principal conductor of the YOA from its inception until 2011 when he was appointed music director. In 2018, he conducted the orchestra on a tour of European summer festivals, which included performances at the Rheingau and Edinburgh festivals as well as Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. He has also worked regularly with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the NYO2 in New York.

Prieto is renowned for championing Latin American music as well as his dedication to new music. He has conducted over 100 world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, many of which were commissioned by him. Prieto places equal importance on championing works by Black and African American composers such as Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and Courtney Bryan, among others.

Prieto has an extensive discography that includes Deutsche Gramophone, Naxos and Sony labels. Prieto was recognized by Musical America as the 2019 Conductor of the Year. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard University, Prieto studied conducting with Jorge Mester, Enrique Diemecke, Charles Bruck and Michael Jinbo.

Paquito D’Rivera has won a combined 16 GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY Awards (5 GRAMMY and 11 Latin GRAMMYs). He is celebrated both for his artistry in Latin jazz and his achievements as a classical composer.

Born in Havana, Cuba, he performed at age 10 with the National Theater Orchestra, studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music, and at 17, became a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony. As a founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, he directed that group for two years, while at the same time playing both the clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. He eventually went on to premiere several works by notable Cuban composers with the same orchestra. Additionally, he was a founding member and co-director of the innovative musical ensemble Irakere.

His numerous recordings include more than 30 solo albums. In 1988, he was a founding member of the United Nation Orchestra, a 15-piece ensemble organized by Dizzy Gillespie to showcase the fusion of Latin and Caribbean influences with jazz. D’Rivera continues to appear as guest conductor.

While D’Rivera’s discography reflects a dedication and enthusiasm for Jazz, Bebop and Latin music, his contributions to classical music are impressive. They include solo performances with the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the Costa Rica National Symphony, the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the Bronx Arts Ensemble and the St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, among others. In his passion to bring Latin repertoire to greater prominence, D’Rivera has successfully created, championed and promoted all types of classical compositions, including his three chamber compositions recorded live in concert with distinguished cellist Yo-Yo Ma in September 2003.

In addition, to his extraordinary performing career as an instrumentalist, D’Rivera has rapidly gained a reputation as an accomplished composer. The prestigious music house, Boosey and Hawkes, is the exclusive publisher of D’Rivera’s compositions. Recent recognition of his compositional skills came with the award of a 2007 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, and the 2007–2008 appointment as Composer-In-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. His numerous commissions include compositions for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the National Symphony Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Ying String Quartet, the International Double Reed Society, Syracuse University, Montreal’s Gerald Danovich Saxophone Quartet and the Grant Park Music Festival. In the 2021–22, season finale D’Rivera performed “Dali in the Tropics” with New Jersey Symphony.

D’Rivera is the author of two books: My Sax Life, published by Northwestern University Press, and a novel, Oh, La Habana, published by MTeditores, Barcelona. He is the recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award 2005 and the National Medal of the Arts 2005, as well as the Living Jazz Legend Award from the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. in 2007. His numerous other honors include Doctorates Honoris Causa in Music (from the Berklee School of Music in Boston, the University of Pennsylvania), and the Jazz Journalist Association’s Clarinetist of the Year Award in both 2004 and 2006. In 2008, D’Rivera received the International Association for Jazz Education President’s Award and the Frankfurter Musikpreis in Germany, the Medal of Honor from the National Arts Club in 2009. In 2010, he was named a Nelson A Rockefeller Honoree and given the African-American Classical Music Award from Spelman College.

In 1999, and in celebration of its 500-year history, the Universidad de Alcala de Henares presented Paquito with a special award recognizing his contribution to the arts, his humane qualities, and his defense of rights and liberties of artists around the world. The National Endowment for the Arts website affirms “he has become the consummate multinational ambassador, creating and promoting a cross-culture of music that moves effortlessly among jazz, Latin, and Mozart.”

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Amber R. Monroe has been recognized as “a crystalline lyric soprano and a superb singing actress” (Seen-and-Heard-International).

She is a recent alumna of the Cafritz Young Artists Program with Washington National Opera, where she made her Kennedy Center debut as Ines in Il trovatore, followed by Isabelle in Carlos Simon’s The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson and Mimì in La Bohème. In summer of 2023, she joined Santa Fe Opera as an apprentice artist, covering the Second Wood Sprite in Rusalka.

An enthusiast of contemporary opera, Monroe originated the role of Clarissa in the world-premiere of Gregory Spears’ Castor and Patience (Cincinnati Opera) and performed the title role in the Midwest premiere of Nkeiru Okoye’s Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom (Cleveland Opera Theater). She has also workshopped Blue by Jeanine Tesori (The Glimmerglass Festival) and The Hours by Kevin Puts, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.

On the concert stage, she has been a featured soloist at the US Naval Academy and the University of Maryland for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. She was also the soprano soloist of Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Capital City Symphony. Other performances include Schubert’s Mass in G Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4 with the Oberlin Orchestra, Ricky Ian Gordon’s and flowers pick themselves with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, as well as in a Lincoln Center performance of Roland Carter’s Hold Fast to Dreams with the Tuskegee University Golden Voice Concert Choir.

In 2023, Monroe was named the winner of the Sullivan Foundation Awards and George and Nora London Foundation Competition. She is a 2021 recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from The Shoshana Foundation. She has also been awarded and placed in competitions such as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Annapolis Opera Voice Competition, the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition with the Pittsburgh Festival Opera and the Classical Singer Competition.

Monroe completed her Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma in opera at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

She earned her Bachelor of Music in voice from Oberlin Conservatory of Music.