One of the guest artists in the second annual Tucson Desert Song Festival earlier this month just walked away with one of America’s most prestigious opera honors.
Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano took the George London-Norma Newton Award at the 43rd annual George London Foundation Awards Competition. The winners were announced last Friday.
The London Awards is a juried competition that awards more than $80,000 in prizes each year. Cano and other winners each received $10,000; $1,000 is given to other winners of the foundation “Encouragement Awards.”
Past winners of the George London Awards include Reneé Fleming.
Cano, who performed with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust” and in a recital of works by Berlioz in the orchestra’s chamber music series in early February, is married to Tucson native Christopher Cano, a classically trained pianist.
