NEW YORK (AP) — The prize dubbed the Heisman Trophy for singers goes to a Georgia native with an earth-shattering voice — and an earthy style.
The winner of the 2015 Richard Tucker Award is mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. The opera singer recently appeared barefoot in jeans, giggling and cradling a glass of wine — offstage, chatting on YouTube.
Onstage in costume, she’s being compared to the past century’s finest vocalists.
The $50,000 prize goes to a major young American singer. It’s named after Tucker, the late tenor and Brooklyn native who started out as a cantor in synagogues.
Barton says she started out listening to bluegrass “in the middle of nowhere” — in a small Georgia farmhouse. Her teenage rebellion was opera, but she says half her iPod is still filled with bluegrass.
