Soprano Sylvia McNair had spent years performing with esteemed orchestras and opera companies across the US and Europe. She has sung Bach’s Mass in B minor in the Vatican for the Pope, and received an invitation to the White House from an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton.

She has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra, and has worked many times with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Shaw, the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Seiji Ozawa, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra led by Leonard Slatkin and the New York Philharmonic with Kurt Masur.