Last weekend, at the grand finale of the 12^th annual Savannah VOICE Festival (SVF), the nonprofit organization announced details of its forthcoming 13^th season.  This spectacular new season will be a milestone one as it celebrates the 90^th birthday of opera legend and Co-Founder of the Festival, Sherrill Milnes, as well as the 60^thanniversary of his Metropolitan Opera debut and the 25^th anniversary of the Milnes VOICE Programs. 

The 13^th season for the Savannah VOICE Festival will kick off this fall in the Hostess City with a new Museum series, once again partnering with the historic Green Meldrim House, as three seasonal concerts travel around the world.  It begins with American music on October 16, followed by a trip to Paris on December 5 for the organization’s holiday fundraiser and finishes on March 13 with a Mediterranean voyage.  The annual Milnes VOICE Gala in New York City will take place on May 7 and will honor the career of Sherrill Milnes. 

The operas for the 13^th Savannah VOICE Festival which will take place in August 2025, were confirmed asRigoletto to honor Sherrill’s career as a Verdi baritone.  Guiseppe Verdi’s three act opera premiered in Venice in 1851 and is based on a Victor Hugo play. Verdi’s sixteenth opera is widely considered to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester, Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. Savannah OPERA’s second production for the 13^th season will tell the story of the Cinderella sequel, with the premiere of Michael Ching’s opera, A Royal Feast.   Ching has been SVF’s Composer in Residence for the last ten years, and now hands over the baton to a new Composer in Residence, Jodi Goble, who has collaborated with Michael to develop a new Savannah-centric opera from the Second World War era, The Eleanors, which was presented at a private reading during the 12^th annual festival.

Composer Jodi Goble writes text-based, character-driven music fueled by her extensive background as a vocal coach and song-specialist collaborative pianist. Her compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally and featured on National Public Radio.  She won the Iowa Music Teachers Association Commission Competition in 2013 and took first prize in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Competition in 2024 for her song cycle Sea Creatures for soprano and piano.  She also placed as a NATS ASCA finalist in 2008, 2017, 2020, and 2021, as the honorable mention winner in 2015, and won second prize in 2016.  Her art songs are published in anthologies by New Music Shelf and North Star Music.  Ms. Goble is Full Teaching Professor in Voice at Iowa State University, the official pianist for the Simon Estes Roots and Wings Community Concert Series, and the official accompanist for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Guild Auditions in Iowa.    

The contributions of Artistic Director, Jorge Parodi, were also recognized at the finale as he transitioned to the role of Principal Conductor for the Savannah VOICE Festival.  Reviewed as having “the most expressive conducting hands since Stokowski” by the New York Daily News, Maestro Parodi has worked extensively in North America, Latin America and Asia.  In addition to his roles with the Milnes VOICE Programs, Maestro Parodi is the General and Artistic Director of Opera Hispánica, the premier company in the United Sates focused on the Hispanic vocal repertoire and on the Latin perspective.  He is also the new Music Director of the Moores Opera Center and Assistant Director of Orchestras at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. He has been a faculty member at The Juilliard School for over two decades and is Vocal Coach of the premier Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. Jorge Parodi is also the Founder and Artistic Director of the Tokyo International Vocal Arts Academy Summer Workshop, an intensive program for pianists and singers in the early stages of their professional career. Board member and former Composer in Residence, Michael Ching, will be taking the role of Interim Artistic Director, working alongside Maria Zouves during this transitional year, as a search for the next Artistic Director is underway.

“This new season will be an important milestone for the Milnes VOICE Programs with three significant anniversaries to celebrate,” said Maria Zouves, Co-Founder of SVF. “I could not be more excited about our plans for the 13^thseason as we will tell many stories through the vocal arts. Don’t miss a note!” 

To purchase tickets or for more information, please visit savannahvoicefestival.org, or call the box office at 855-766-7372.