Just about everybody who is anybody has appeared on the Harriman-Jewell Series. Or so it seems these days, 58 years after the Series was founded by two William Jewell College professors, Richard Harriman and Dean Dunham, Jr. Let’s put it this way: If you are a classical performing artist or ensemble or dance company or even a Broadway singer who has not been on Kansas City’s world-renowned Series, you might want to have a heart-to-heart with your management.

This Saturday, January 7th, at the Folly Theater, South African-born Soprano Pretty Yende will present what is, astonishingly, the 1,000th performance in the Series’ august history.

The star of major houses (Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, La Scala, Staatsoper Berlin) makes her local debut with a program of songs and arias by Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, and Liszt. Her collaborative pianist is Indian-American Conductor and Pianist Kamal Khan, who will perform solo piano works by Chopin and Verdi/Liszt.

Pretty joins the company of nearly every major opera singer of the last half-century, including (just to name some of the sopranos) June Anderson, Elly Ameling, Martina Arroyo, Kathleen Battle, Grace Bumbry, Régine Crespin, Victoria de los Ángeles, Renée Fleming, Evelyn Lear, Birgit Nilsson, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price, Renata Scotto, Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland, Ruth Ann Swenson, Renata Tebaldi, Kiri Te Kanawa, Carol Vaness, and Deborah Voigt.

The Harriman-Jewell Series is especially known for having presented world- or United States debuts of several major singers of our time, most notably that of Luciano Pavarotti in 1973. Pretty will, coincidentally or not, sing some of the same Bellini works that the great tenor performed on that recital a half-century ago.

Saturday’s event will also include, in a post-performance event, a presentation of the Richard Harriman Award to artists or groups that have appeared 10 or more times on the Series.

Kansas City native and internationally lauded Choreographer David Parsons will be on hand to present the awards to Marilyn Horne, Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, Joyce DiDonato, David Parsons and Parsons Dance, Wynton Marsalis, The King’s Singers, Collaborative Pianists Martin Katz and Warren Jones, Canadian Brass, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Yo-Yo Ma.

For tickets go to hjseries.org or call 816-415-5025. For information about the singer, seecprettyyende.com.