Finalists perform an aria selected by expert judges in front of a live audience. Winners are announced live and receive over $75,000 in awards.

2025 marks the 30th year of the Foundation presenting recitals, the first of which was performed by Renée Fleming back in 1995. To celebrate, the Foundation has commissioned Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer to write a song cycle based on Nora London’s as yet unpublished World War II diary which tells the dramatic story of her escape from France as a 15-year-old Jewish teenager.

Jake is best known for his opera Dead Man Walking which opened the Met season last year. Gene is a prolific artist and librettist, and Jake and Gene are frequent collaborators.

In addition, mezzo-soprano Megan Moore, a 2022 George London Award winner, will perform a program of music by Debussy, Mahler, Rossini and Strauss. The Observer has praised Megan’s genuinely beautiful voice, saying, Megan Moore as Dorabella [in Così Fan Tutte] poured out rich, buttery mezzo tone, and when she made her Seattle Opera debut in The Barber of Seville, the Seattle Times said, Megan Moore as Rosina delivers teenage sass with her vocal fireworks.