The Richard Tucker Award

2013 Richard Tucker Award Winner Isabel Leonard

The Richard Tucker Award is selected by conferral, rather than audition. This prestigious award carries not only the name of Richard Tucker and a cash prize of $30,000, but also a stellar list of past recipients. The operative guideline for the Richard Tucker Award is that it be awarded to an American singer poised on the edge of a major national and international career, and it is hoped that the award acts as a well-timed catalyst to elevate the artist’s career to even greater heights. 

Isabel Leonard, 2013 Richard Tucker Award winner

Highly acclaimed for her “passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty”, Isabel Leonard continues to make waves in the world of classical music both at home in the United States and abroad. In the 2012-13 season, Metropolitan Opera audiences hear Ms. Leonard in two role debuts; as Miranda in Ades’ The Tempest and as Blanche in Poulenc’s Les Dialogues des Carmélites. She also dazzled MET audiences with her Rosina in the English version of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. This season also marked Ms. Leonard’s house and role debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Sesto in Christopher Alden’s production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.   Ms. Leonard was recently featured in a series of recitals including the University of Notre Dame, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, San Francisco Performances and Atlanta’s Spivey Hall.   She made her Zankel Hall Recital debut on April 9, 2013. On the concert stage this season, Ms. Leonard is the featured soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Ete with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. She closes the season with MET concerts in the Parks and travels to Japan, where she will perform the title role in L’Enfant et les Sortileges and Concepcion in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole at the Saito Kinen Festival, with Seiji Ozawa conducting. Ms. Leonard is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, most recently the Beverly Sills Award (2011), the Richard Gold Award of the Shoshana Foundation (2007), Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Award (2006), the William Schuman Graduation Prize of The Juilliard School (2006), the Makiko Narumi Prize of The Juilliard School (2005), The Marilyn Horne Foundation award of the Music Academy of the West (2005) and was a winner of the Giulio Gari Competition (2005). Isabel Leonard is a native New Yorker and received both her Bachelor and Masters of Music at The Juilliard School, and studies with Edith Bers.

For more information, visit her official website at http://isabelleonard.com/

Richard Tucker Award Winners

2012 Ailyn Pérez
2011 Angela Meade
2010 James Valenti
2009 Stephen Costello
2008 No Award Given
2007 Brandon Jovanovich
2006 Lawrence Brownlee
2005 Eric Cutler
2004 Matthew Polenzani
2003 John Relyea
2002 Joyce DiDonato
2001 Christine Goerke
2000 Gregory Turay
1999 Stephanie Blythe
1998 Patricia Racette
1997 David Daniels
1996 Dwayne Croft
1995 Paul Groves
1994 Jennifer Larmore
1993 Ruth Ann Swenson
1992 Deborah Voigt
1991 No Award Given
1990 Renée Fleming
1989 Margaret Jane Wray
1988 Richard Leech
1987 Harry Dworchak
1986 Dolora Zajick
1985 Aprile Millo
1984 Roger Roloff
1983 Susan Dunn
1982 No Award Given
1981 J. Patrick Raftery
1980 Barry McCauley
1979 Diana Soviero
1978 Rockwell Blake