LEXINGTON — Richland County has been the home to many talented stage and screen performers over the years.
But few, if any, have earned the acclaim of Sylvia McNair.
Sylvia McNair was born in Mansfield, the daughter of George and Marilou McNair. She attended and graduated from Lexington High School.
She studied violin as a child and enrolled in the undergraduate music program at Wheaton College in Illinois. Here she was encouraged by a violin instructor to study voice as well. It was a life-changing suggestion.
McNair earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1978 from Wheaton and subsequently a Master of Music with Distinction degree in 1983 from the Indiana University School of Music.
A two-time Grammy Award winner and regional Emmy Award winner, McNair lays claim to a stellar career in the musical realms of opera, oratorio, art song, jazz, cabaret, and musical theater.
She is recognized as one of the most sought-after American artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Her journey has taken her from the Metropolitan Opera to the Salzburg Festival, from the New York Philharmonic to the Rainbow Room, from the Ravinia Festival to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, from the pages of The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to the London Times and the cover of Cabaret Scenes.
Having appeared as a soloist multiple times, sometimes more than once per season, with nearly every major opera company and symphony orchestra in the world, this songbird eventually flew the classical coop and successfully retraced her star route with Gershwin, Porter, Hamlisch, Bernstein, and Sondheim.
Sylvia has recorded for every major classical record label, garnering two GRAMMY awards and six Grammy nominations.
Her recording, ROMANCE, a disc of Latin American jazz standards was released to a rave review from Fanfare Magazine: “… here the record is, and it’s fabulous. In fact, it’s the biggest surprise of its kind I’ve encountered since Diana Ross’s live album of Billie Holiday standards.”
A review of her performance with Marvin Hamlisch and the Milwaukee Symphony exclaimed: “…she is that rare opera type who really gets the popular song. She reined in the vibrato and played to the microphone perfectly.
“Her matchless enunciation not only delivered the words and their sentiments, but also helped to etch the rhythms. Her wonderfully pure Summertime, purged of all diva carrying-on, is among the best I’ve ever heard.” (Third Coast Digest)
After her opening at the famed Oak Room of the Algonquin, critic Rex Reed swooned, “I could get used to this kind of ecstasy.”
Outside of music, Sylvia says she is doing the most important work of her life teaching ENL (formerly known as ESL) and adult literacy through a program called VITAL, Volunteers In Tutoring Adult Learners.
She volunteers with the Mobile Food Pantry, part of the Area 10 Agency on Aging’s outreach in her community. She also works for the Refugee Support Network in Bloomington, Indiana, where she encounters some of the bravest people she’s ever met and considers it an honor to work alongside them.
A proud Buckeye from Mansfield, Sylvia earned a master’s degree with distinction from the Indiana University School of Music, she received honorary doctorates from Westminster College (1997) and Indiana University (1998), the Ohio Governor’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Entertainment (1999), the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award (2011).