3 IU music school students win Met Opera competition

IU Jacobs School of Music students Kiri Deonarine, Ljubomir Puskaric and Jung Nan Yoon were named winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Indiana District competition Jan. 10 at IU’s Musical Arts Center.

“It’s been week after week perfecting the music for the competition,” said Puskaric’s voice instructor, Jacobs professor Robert Harrison. “It’s nitty-gritty work because the competition is so steep. It forces me to be highly critical – I pick and I pick until we make things as perfect as they can be. It’s a lot of long hours and hard work, but it’s necessary.”

Most of the candidates who auditioned for the Met’s Indiana District competition were Jacobs School of Music students.

“Compared to other districts, the competition is high here,” Harrison said. “I would say we’re on the same level as the east and west coast districts.”

“I certainly didn’t expect to win,” Deonarine said. “My father always said that you have to audition a couple of times before you really start to succeed, and it was my first time to compete.”

The judges for this year’s competition, who included Timothy O’Leary, the new general director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis; Jane Bunnell, mezzo-soprano; and Brian Zeger, the artistic director of The Juilliard School, who represented the Met, awarded $4,000 in total prize money.

The three winners will advance to the Met’s Tri-State Regional Auditions at the University of Cincinnati on Sunday. The winners of the regional rounds will go on to compete in the National Semi-Finals on Feb. 15 and the Grand Finals Concert on Feb. 22 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Puskaric realizes the competition he will face in the next rounds will be fierce.

“I don’t have much time to think about my feelings right now,” he said. “All I can think about is concentrating and preparing for regionals on Sunday. But I wouldn’t consider this competition the one and only. You never know what is going to happen – you could get sick, get distracted by something else, or it just might not be your day. This is a career where you use your body, and it doesn’t always react the way you want it to.”