American barihunk Andrew Garland will sing Abe in the world premiere of Gerald Cohen and Deborah Brevoort's opera Steal a Pencil for Me with Opera Colorado, which opens on January 25th and runs through January 30th. Tickets are available online.
The opera is a true story about a group of Dutch Jews who are deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the last year of World War II. Surrounded by horrors of the Holocaust, Jaap and Manja Polak’s already
fragile marriage dissolves as he turns his attentions to Ina Soep. The couple struggles to survive at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, while surrounded by torture, disease, starvation, and death. The secret lovers exchange passionate letters written with stolen pencil stubs, keeping their hopes and hearts alive in a time of darkness.
Andrew Garland sings The Gallows Tree:
In a happy ending to the real life story, Jaap and Ina Polak stayed married for 70 years after surviving the horrors of the concentration camp!
The Massachusetts native moved to Colorado last year to join the voice faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In February, Garland will join Camerata Pacifica for a series of lieder recitals in California with accompanist Warren Jones in Ventura, San Marino and Santa Barbara.
Wayne Tigges, Aaron Blake, Andrew Garland and Michael Weyandt(l-r)
The new New York City Opera closes its season with the New York Premiere of Péter Eötvös's Angels in America, distilling the two-night, seven-hour play into a single, powerful evening of opera. The cast includes the barihunk trio of Andrew Garland as Prior Walter, Michael Weyandt as Joe, Wayne Tigges as Roy Cohn and hunkentenor Aaron Blake as Louis. The opera comes with a warning of "strong sexual content, nudity, mature themes and language."
The opera was originally written for the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris
where it premiered in 2004. The cast included barihunks Daniel Belcher
and Omar Ebrahim, as well as Barbara Hendricks, Roberta Alexander, Derek
Lee Ragin and and Topi Lehtipuu.
Angels in America received its West Coast premiere in 2013 at the
Walt Disney Concert Hall with barihunk David Adam Moore and Nikolas
Nackley as Joe. Moore has also sung the role at the Fort Worth Opera Festival and the Opera Wrocławsa in Poland.
The opera is based on Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the
same name and will be sung in English with supertitles. There will be
four performances running from June 10-16 and additional cast information and tickets are available online.
Barihunk Michael Weyandt is joinging the cast of Péter Eötvös’ opera adaptation of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic Angels in America with the New York City Opera. Weyandt will be singing the role of the closeted gay Mormon Joe Pitt in what will be the New York premiere of the opera. He joins fellow barihunk Andrew Garland, who is singing the crucial role of Prior Walter.
Angels in America received its West Coast premiere in 2013 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with barihunk David Adam Moore and Nikolas Nackley as Joe.
Andrew Garland
The opera was originally written for the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris where it premiered in 2004. The cast included barihunks Daniel Belcher and Omar Ebrahim, as well as Barbara Hendricks, Roberta Alexander, Derek Lee Ragin and and Topi Lehtipuu.
The opera is based on Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name and will be sung in English with supertitles. There will be four performances running from June 10-16.
Oddly, and distressingly, the New York City Opera did not post cast lists!
Andrew Garland's American Portraits CD and sporting a BARIHUNK t-shirt
We've long maintained that barihunk Andrew Garland is one of the foremost interpreters of new American music. He has two upcoming recitals that will feature this repertory.
The first is on April 6, when he joins soprano Jessica Rivera for the American Pianists Awards Song Recital at the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis. Other singers in the series include Alex Beyer, Sam Hong, Henry Kramer, Steven lin and Drew Petersen. Tickets are available online.
The American Pianists Awards are held every four years to discover the
best aspiring young American classical pianists. Winners receive cash
and two years of career advancement and support valued at over $100,000,
making this one of the most coveted prizes in the music world.
Andrew Garland's complete American Portraits recital:
The second recital will be on April 8, 2017 at the Newer Every Day Presbyterian Church of Wyoming in Cincinnati, Ohio. The recital is called Americana: Newer Every Day, named after Jake Heggie's song cycle for soprano. Also on the program is Juliana Hall's Christina's World for soprano.
Garland will perform Tom Cipullo's America 1968 and Steven Mark Kohn's Selections from American Folk Settings.
America 1968 was commissioned and premiered by Andrew Garland in 2008. The song cycle was inspired by the events of 1968 in America, including two assassinations, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the
Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Apollo 8 orbiting the moon and the black power
salute of John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the medal-stand of the Mexico
City Olympics. The texts by poet Robert Hayden include Monet's Water Lilies, Hey Nonny No, The Point, The Whipping, Those Winter Sundays and Frederick Douglass.
Garland has suggested that Steven Mark Kohn's Selections from American Folk Settings is the most important setting of old American songs since Copland. Kohn is an award-winning composer of children's films and director of the electronic music studio at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The set includes the light-hearted The Bachelor's Lay, the story of a young man who ignores a father's advice to avoid a career in coal-mining, the humorous The Farmer's Curst Wife and The Ocean Burial, which captures the flavor of the California Gold Rush.
Minnesota Opera is presenting the world premiere of William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight
as part of their New Works Initiative. The initiative was launched in
2008 with a goal of invigorating the opera repertoire with an infusion of
new and contemporary works. The opera, which has
a libretto by Mark Campbell is based on the play by George S. Kaufman
and Edna Ferber. It will have its world premiere on Saturday, March 11,
2017.
Dinner at Eight caught our eye as it has six baritones and basses in the cast, including two of our regularly featured barihunks, Andrew Garland and Craig Irvin. They'll be joined by baritone Stephen Powell, soprano Brenda Harris, soprano Susannh Biller, tenor Richard Troxell, mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, soprano Siena Forest, bass Benjamin Sieverding, baritone Thomas Glass II, baritone William Lee Bryan, mezzo-soprano Nadia Fayad, soprano Alexandra Razskazoff and soprano Mary Evelyn Hangley.
The opera is set in Manhattan during the Great Depression and centers on
the tension between a husband coping with financial problems and his
wife who is planning an elaborate dinner party for visiting British
nobility.
How else would we celebrate National Redhead Day, but with a post about barihunk Andrew Garland? He'll be performing in Orff's Carmina Burana at Trinity Chapel in Newton, Massachusetts on November 11 and 12. He will be joined by the University Chorale of Boston College and the Boston College Symphony Orchestra under the baton of John Finney.
Garland also has two performances of Handel's Messiah on the calendar. He'll be performing the piece with the Boston Baroque on December 9 and 10 and then with the Colorado Bach Ensemble on December 17 and 18.
A few fun facts about redheads:
The highest concentration of redheads is in Scotland (13%) followed by Ireland (10%). Worldwide, only 2% of the population has red hair.
People with red hair are likely more sensitive to pain.
Redheads are more likely to be left handed. Both characteristics come from recessive genes, which like to come in pairs.
Bees have been proven to be more attracted to redheads.
Men with red hair are 54% less likely to develop prostate cancer
Redheads have less hair than most other people, averaging 90,000 strands of hair compared to the average of 140,000. However, red hair is typically thicker so they it looks just as full.
William Berger, Jonathan Estabrooks, Gregory Gerbrandt & Duncan Rock (clockwise top L)
Here is what some other barihunk redheads are up to:
William Berger will be singing Marcello in Puccini's La bohéme at Opera de Rouen next season.
Jonathan Estabrooks will perform Clara & Jonathan/Crossover to Love aboard the Sea Princess Cruise Liner leaving from Brisbane, Australia.
Duncan Rock is performing the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Glyndebourne Festival through December 9th (opposite the Leporello of fellow barihunk Brandon Cedel).
Gregory Gerbrandt opens tonight as Jim Larkens in Puccini's La fanciulla del West at Opera Colorado.
Our 10th Anniversary "Barihunks in Bed" calendar is out and it's our HOTTEST ever. Click on the LULU button to order your copy before the holiday rush.
Andrew Garland sporting his Barihunk shirt and showing off his "bari-guns"
Mozart's Così fan tutte just opened a run at the Ash Lawn Opera featuring barihunk Andrew Garland. After an opening night show at the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, it now heads to the Paramount Theater for performances on July 10, 13, and 15.
The cast also includes Kristopher Irmiter as Don Alfonso, Mireille Asselin as Despina, Cassandra Velasco as Dorabella, Melinda Whittington as Fiordiligi and Joshua Dennis as Ferrando. The production is being directed by Andrea Dorf McGray and conducted by Steven Jarvi.
On July 16 and 17, Garland will be back in his native Massachusetts for recitals of music by Schumann, Obradors, Cole Porter and others at the Federated Church in Charlemont. He'll be joined by accompanist Estela Olevsky.
Timothy McDevitt
Barihunks Timothy McDevitt and Corey Crider will be featured in their other production, Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, which will run at the Paramount from July 23-30. McDevitt will perform the role of the courageous Lt. Cable and Crider takes on the dashing leading man Emile de Becque.
Matthew Morrison sings "Younger Than Springtime" from South Pacific:
They'll be joined by Sharin Apostolou as Nelli Forbush, Daryl Freedman as Bloody Mary and Clayton Brown as Luther Billis. The production will be directed by John de los Santos and conducted by Andy Anderson.
Andrew Garland and Brandon Cedel (left), Jonathan Beyer and Cedel (center) and a rehearsal break
The Boston Lyric Opera kicked off their new season with a production of Puccini's La bohème. The cast features the barihunk trio of Jonathan Beyer as Marcello, Brandon Cedel as Colline and Andrew Garland as Schaunard. Beyer and Cedel are a couple offstage, making one wonder what is really going on in that Parisian garret.
Directed by Rosetta Cucchi, the opera is updated to the 1968 Paris student revolts that reflected generational unrest and supported strikes that brought the city to its knees, this production is influenced by the spirit of defiance embodied in French New Wave films (particularly Jean-Luc Godard’s “Masculin Féminin”) and the mod clothing inspired by London fashion that upended the city’s haute couture reputation. Boston Lyric Opera's new La Bohème places Puccini’s familiar story of bohemian artists fuled by idealism and passionate love in a graffiti-laden student flat, the revolutionaries’ gathering place Café Momus, and alongside a barricade erected during the student riots. Audio recordings from the era and from the riots are an integral part of the production’s sound design.
Beyer is returning to the company after having performed Figaro in their 2012 production of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Garland sang Schaunard in the company's 2007 production of La bohème and Cedel is making his company debut. Also in the cast are Jesus Garcia as Rodolfo and the stunning Kelly Kaduce as Mimì.
There are remaining performances on October 4, 7, 9 and 11. Tickets and addition production information is available online.
Our 2016 Barihunks Charity Calendar is now on sale. Order today by clicking below. All proceeds will go to the creation of the Foundation for the Advancement of Baritones (FAB).
Andrew Garland has been one of our favorite lieder/song recitalists ever since we heard his amazing CD of American composers, which is still available for sale. The CD features music of Tom Cipullo, Jake Heggie, Lori Laitman and Stephen Paulus and remains one of the best recording of American songs.
On August 7th, Garland will turn his attention to German language lieder in a Schubertiade at the Spire Center for the Performing Arts in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Garland will perform selections from both Winterreise and Die Schöne Müllerin, as well as selected songs. World's End Trio with guest musicians will also perform the Trout Quintet.
Andrew Garland's American Portraits recital (Complete):
You can catch him on the operatic stage beginning on October 2nd when he performs Schaunard in Puccini's La bohème with the Boston Lyric Opera. The cast includes the real-life barihunk couple of Jonathan Beyer as Marcello and Brandan Cedel as Colline.
Christopher Dylan Herbert will be the featured soloist in two performances of Ralph Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs and the Fauré Requiem in New York City next week.
The first performance is at Hunter College in Lenox Hill on Thursday, April 16 with a subsequent performance on April 18 at Our Savior's Atonement Lutheran Church in Washington Heights.
Ralph Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs were written between 1906 and 1911 to texts by the seventeenth-century Welsh-born English poet and Anglican priest George Herbert (1593–1633). The poems come from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems.
While Herbert was a priest, Vaughan Williams himself was an atheist at the time, though this did not prevent his setting of verse of an overtly religious inspiration.
Andrew Garland sings Easter from Five Mystical Songs:
The songs supposed to be performed together as a single work, but the styles of each vary quite significantly. The first four songs are quite personal meditations in which the soloist takes a key role, particularly in the third - Love Bade Me Welcome, where the chorus has a wholly supporting role, and the fourth, The Call, in which the chorus does not feature at all. The final Antiphon is probably the most different of all: a triumphant hymn of praise sung either by the chorus alone or by the soloist alone; unlike the previous songs, a separate version is provided for a solo baritone. It is also sometimes performed on its own, as a church anthem for choir and organ: Let all the world in every corner sing.
On May 24th, Christopher Dylan Herbert rejoins the group New York Polyphony for their European tour, which takes them to Amsterdam and then Germany. Check out their website for dates and locations.
Barihunks is celebrating Women's History Month, by highlighting some of the great women composers who left a legacy for the baritone voice. Recently, the Metropolitan Opera was criticized for announcing their new season, which for the 111th straight year included no works by women composers. That's not the case elsewhere, as Kaija Saariaho's operas are being performed this season in Linz, Helsinki and Amsterdam, while Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland opens in London on March 8th.
For centuries composition was not considered an appropriate role for women and, even when they did composer, their works were not taken seriously. Fortunately, a rich legacy of works by women composers is available online. Here are a few of our favorites (and this list is by no means comprehensive!).
Barbara Strozzi was a gifted singer and composer in the 17th century. Encouraged by her father Giulio Strozzi, a noted librettist and dramatist in his own right, she wrote eight volumes of dramatic vocal music. Many of her songs were set to lyrics penned by her father. He music is marked by chromatic tensions, expressive lines and long virtuoso vocal runs.
Kirk Eichelberger sings Barbara Strozzi's L’eraclito amoroso:
Francesca Caccini was born into the Medici court and was a gifted composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher of the early Baroque era. She was also known by the nickname "La Cecchina," originally given to her by the Florentines. She was the daughter of composer Giulio Caccini. Her 1625 work comedy-ballet, La liberazione di Ruggiero, has been widely considered the first opera by a woman composer. She composed 32 songs, wrote music for the court, penned liturgical music and at least 16 stage works.
Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero:
The Hamburg born Fanny Mendelssohn is the sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who was also an acclaimed pianist and composer in her own right. She is also the granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. She showed prodigious musical ability as a child and began to write music, but was limited by prevailing attitudes of the time toward women.
She composed over 460 pieces of music, including her famous Piano Trio in D-minor, Opus 11 . A number of her songs were originally published under her brother's name in his Opus 8 and 9 collections.
She died in Berlin in 1847 of complications from a stroke suffered while rehearsing one of her brother's oratorios, The First Walpurgis Night. Her brother died less than six months later from the same complications.
Maarten Koningsberger sings Fanny Mendelssohn's Fichtenbaum und Palme and Traurige Wege::
Clara Schumann is the half of the composing team that included her husband Robert. She was not only a formidable talent as a composer, but a gifted pianist who premiered many of the works of Johannes Brahms. Her songs, not as well known as her works for piano, are among the
treasures of her creative work and can take their place with the best of
the German Lieder repertoire.
Robert Schumann had always urged her to compose songs, and he even undertook the necessary negotiations to get them published. Despite this, many of her songs have been erroneously attributed to Robert. All of Clara's songs published during her lifetime were written after her marriage to
Robert and almost every song was intended as a Christmas or
birthday gift for her husband. Her songs were performed by the leading male and female singers of the nineteenth century throughout the concert halls of Europe. In 1906, the her Ihr Bildnis and Liebst du um Schönheit.
Schumann was a unique phenomenon, honored and respected during her
lifetime. Her triumphs as a musician may have compensated in part for
the many personal tragedies she endured: the lengthy mental illness and
death of her husband in 1856, the hospitalization of her incurably ill
adult son Ludwig in 1870, and the deaths of three adult children: Julie
in 1872, Felix in 1879, and Ferdinand in 1891.
Thomas Hampson sings five songs by Clara Schumann:
Ethel Smyth was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement, whose father strongly objected to her becoming a composer. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral and concertante works, choral works, and operas. In her mid-50s, she began to gradually lose her hearing and managed to complete only
four more major works before deafness brought her composing career to an
end.
Her opera The Wreckers is considered by some critics to be the most important English opera composed during the period between Purcell and Britten. Her operas Der Wald remains the only opera by a woman composer ever produced at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
In recognition of her work as a composer and writer, Smyth was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1922. Smyth had several passionate affairs in her life,, most of them with women. She died in 1944 at the age of 86.
Ethel Smyth's Mass in D:
Ruth Crawford Seeger was a modernist composer active primarily during the 1920s and 30s and an American folk music specialist from the late 1930s until her death. She was a prominent member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns," and her music influenced later composers including Elliott Carter.
Her reputation as a composer chiefly rests on her New York compositions written between 1930 and 1933, which are concerned with dissonant counterpoint and American serial techniques. She was one of the first composers to extend serial processes to musical elements other than pitch, and to develop formal plans based on serial operations.
Judith Weir CBE is a British composer and Master of the Queen's Music. She studied with Sir John Tavener at the North London Collegiate School and subsequently with Robin Holloway at King's College. Her music often draws on sources from medieval history, as well as the
traditional stories and music of her parents' homeland, Scotland.
Although she has achieved international recognition for her orchestral
and chamber works, Weir is best known for her operas and theatrical
works.
She has written seven full length operas, many of which were commissioned by the English National Opera. Her operatic writing has been compared to Benjamin Britten.
George Mosley sings Judith Weir's Blackbirds and Thrushes:
Lori Laitman is an American composer of vocal music. She has composed over 250 songs, setting the words of classic and contemporary English-language poets, including the lost voices of poets who perished in the Holocaust.
Her opera, The Scarlet Letter, to a libretto by David Mason (based on the Nathanial Hawthorne classic), will receive its professional premiere at Opera Colorado in May 2016 starring Elizabeth Futral. The one-hour adaption for five voices and piano will premiere in March 2015 with the Young Artists of Opera Colorado. Her children's opera, "The Three Feathers," to a libretto by Dana Gioia (based on a Grimm's fairy tale), was commissioned by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech and premiered on October 17, 2014.
The title song of her cycle "Men With Small Hands" refers to a small child gazing up at adults, whose heads appear to be
disproportionately tiny. "Refrigerator, 1957" contains an unopened jar
of maraschino cherries, brimming with fascination to someone weaned on
bland food, and "A Small Tin Parrot Pin" uses internal rhyme and
wordplay to smirking effect, coupled with Laitman's light, brisk vocal
writing. But the final song might have been the funniest: "Snake Lake,"
in which the singer uses an overly sibilant "s" in every word that that
has one.
Andrew Garland sings Snake Lake by Lori Laitman:
After centuries of being discouraged from composing, women composers are finally coming into their own. Finland's Kaija Saariaho, Russia's Sofia Gubaidulina and Korea's Unsuk Chin are all making a major mark on the opera scene. Meanwhile, on the concert stage the works of Clara Schumann and Barbara Strozzi are gaining in popularity, while women like Laitman, Rebecca Saunders, Tansy Davies and Liza Lim are making a distinct mark on the contemporary music scene.
Traditional Trinidal Carnival costume(left)and Keith Miller(right)
Keith Miller, who is our Mr. November in the 2014 Barihunks calendar, will be showing off his amazing physique as Riolobo in a new production of Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas at the Nashville Opera.
The opera will be directed by John Hoomes, who we asked about the production. He told us:
"As opposed to some productions of the work, our production with focus more of the magic-realistic, sensual, fever-dream aspects of the piece, with extensive dreamlike immersive HD video, and a living, writhing, singing river...As Riolobo, [Keith Miller] will sing the role of the steersman of the steamship, and he will also appear as a manifestation of a mystic Amazon River god. His river god costume will be inspired by the male costumes from Trinidad Carnival."
Hoomes suggested that we do an online search to see what the Trinidad Carnival costumes look like and were we ever pleasantly surprised. We can't imagine a singer in all of opera who would look better in a Carnival costume.
In 1996, Florencia en al Amazonas was the first
Spanish-language opera to be commissioned by a major American opera house. It premiered at the
Houston Grand Opera, and was subsequently performed at the Los Angeles Opera and the Seattle Opera. Daniel Catán died in 2011 at
age 62, shortly after the premiere of his last opera, Il Postino, based on the popular Italian film. At the time of his death, he was at work on a new piece, Meet John Doe, inspired by Frank Capra’s classic film of the same title.
Andrew Garland sings Riolobo's invocation from Florencia en al Amazonas:
The two-act opera Florencia en al Amazonas is set on the steamboat El Dorado in 1910, where the
famous opera singer Florencia is traveling down the Amazon to perform in Manaus. Florencia desires to encounter her lost
love, a butterfly hunter who entered the jungle and never returned. The
dramas aboard the steamboat weave love, conflict, loss, a violent storm,
and ultimately a cholera epidemic that keeps the passengers quarantined
and Florencia’s dream apparently dashed.
The Nashville Opera will present the opera on Friday, January 23, Sunday, January 25 and Tuesday, January 27, 2015. Single tickets are available online.
Andrew Garland in la Calisto - (Photo:Philip Groshong - Cincinnati Opera)
It's seldom that you see two baritones featured in an article about opera, but that just happened with Andrew Garland and Daniel Okulitch. The two are appearing together in the Cincinnati Opera's first baroque opera production, Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto. Two alums of the University of Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), were profiled in Citybeat Cincinnati.
We've had a few straight barihunks on this site appearing in drag for the sake of art, including the inimitable duo of Seth Carico and Michael Mayes in Fort Worth, who were promoting a performance of Mark Adamo's Lysistrata.
Now comes barihunk Daniel Okulitch, who is appearing as Jove in Francesco Cavalli's La Calisto at the Cincinnati Opera. Amazingly, this is the company's first foray in baroque opera in it's 94-year history.
ove
hatches a plan to wend his way into her heart (and her bed) by donning a
Diana-like disguise. - See more at:
http://www.cincinnatiopera.org/performances/la-calisto/#sthash.eCW96qWz.dpuf
Okulitch's drag get up isn't part of some German regie concept that was imported to Cincinnati, but an actual part of the plot. Jove, the ruler of the gods, hatches a plan to wend his way into the heart and bedroom of Calisto by donning a Diana-like disguise. But when Jove’s wife Juno, sung by Alexandra Deshorties, catches wind of the scheme, her fury knows no bounds.
The cast also includes barihunk Andrew Garland as Mercurio [pictures coming!].
There will be five performances between July 17-27 at the Corbett Theater. Tickets are available online.
Alexandra
Deshorties
ove
hatches a plan to wend his way into her heart (and her bed) by donning a
Diana-like disguise. - See more at:
http://www.cincinnatiopera.org/performances/la-calisto/#sthash.eCW96qWz.dpufove hatches a plan to wend his way into her heart (and her bed) by donning a Diana-like disguiseJove hatches a plan to wend his way into her heart (and her bed) by donning a Diana-like disguise
ove
hatches a plan to wend his way into her heart (and her bed) by donning a
Diana-like disguise. - See more at:
http://www.cincinnatiopera.org/performances/la-calisto/#sthash.eCW96qWz.dpuf
We recently posted about Andrew Garland's performances in Pagliacci and Carmina Burana with Hawaii Opera. We were fortunate enough to get a picture of the Massachusetts native in his Barihunks tee shirt as he set off to hit the waves. We also wanted to celebrate his birthday today, as he is one of our favorite singers on the scene today. His CD of American songs on GPR Recordswith pianist Donna Loewy remains one of our favorite baritone recitals. He'll be returning to his homestate on Friday, May 16 for a Celebrity Benefit Concert atPlymouth's Spire Center for Performing Arts with accompanist Warren Jones.
Andrew Garland launched his career as a student in Kingston, Massachusetts. He has been heard in opera performances and concert halls across the country, including appearances at Boston Lyric Opera, Chorus Pro Musica, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Seattle Opera, Knoxville Opera, Colorado Bach Ensemble, Boston Baroque, New York City Opera and more.
Tickets for the Celebrity Benefit Concert are $40 and are available online or by calling(508) 746-4488.
We've been huge fans of American barihunk Andrew Garland since the beginning of his career. We realized the true extent of his amazing artistry with the release of his CD American Portraits on GPR Records. Garland keeps his incredible body in shape by running and biking (and apparently some weight lifting, as well).
He opened last night at the Hawaii Opera in a double-bill of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and Orff's Carmina Burana. Garland is performing both Silvio in Pagliacci and the baritone solo in Carmina Burana. He's joined by the talented young soprano Elizabeth Caballero, who is singing Nedda. There are two performances remaining, a matinee on March 30 and an evening performance on April 1st. Tickets are available online. If the video of Garland singing Estuans Interius from Carmina Burana is any indication, it should be an incredible performance.
If you can't get away to the island paradise to catch Garland, you can hear him on April 13th in Easton, Pennsylvania where he will be the soloist in the world premiere of composer Gabriela Lena
Frank's Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea composed for the
Lafayette Choirs and
featuring the Chiara
String Quartet.
She wrote the music to texts by
the Nicaraguan poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra (1912-2002). As a young man,
Cuadra spent more than two decades sailing the waters of Lake Nicaragua,
meeting peasants, fishermen, sailors, woodcutters, and timber merchants
in his travels. From such encounters, he was inspired to construct a
cycle of poems that recount the odyssey of a harp-playing mariner,
Cifar, who likewise travels the waters of Lake Nicaragua.
The concert is free to the public and it's only a 90 minute drive from New York City or Philadelphia.
Andrew Garland as photographed by Matt Madison-Clark
Andrew Garland will be performing a recital of "Jewish Composers of the 19th & 20th Century" on Sunday, January 19 at 3pm. The recital is part of the Molly Blank Jewish Concert Series at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta which celebrates the Jewish contribution to music. The concert series is a partnership with the Atlanta Opera.
Garland's recital will include music from the German Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn, late-Romantic Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, and American composer Leonard Bernstein. Garland will be accompanied by a string quartet made up of members of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra.
You also may want to check out the review of Andrew Garland's CD "American Portraits" from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Journal, which is one of the best reviews we've ever read. You may recall that we named his CD one of our "Barihunks Best of 2013."
Accompanied by Donna Loewy on piano, Garland sings four song cycles,
Stephen Paulus' "A Heartland Portrait," Tom Cipullo's "America1968"
(dedicated
to Garland and Loewy), Lori Laitmen's "Men with Small Heads" and Jake
Heggie's and "The
Moon is a Mirror." You can order a copy at GPR Records.
Barihunk and cycling enthusiast Andrew Garland is riding in the 2-day, 192 mile Pan -Mass challenge and proudly wearing his Valkyrie wings to show off his operatic pedigree. The ride raises money for life-saving cancer research and
treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through its Jimmy Fund and crosses the Commonwelath of Massachusetts. Each cyclist commits to raising between $500 and $5,000. Readers of this site can help Andrew Garland reach his goal by clicking HERE.
The ride should help up build up plenty of lung power for his upcoming performance in Boston when he trades in his Valkyrie wings for some bird feathers. On Wednesday, August 7th, he'll be performing some of Papageno's music in "A Little Magic Flute & Birthday Celebration for Verdi, Wagner and Britten," a free preview of the Boston Lyric Opera's upcoming season at the Hatch Shell. The concert begins at 7 PM and no tickets are required. He'll be performing Papageno in its entirety with the Boston Lyric Opera from October 4-13. Tickets are available online.
We recently featured Andrew Garland in the Cincinnati Opera's announcement of their new season. We've now learned that he's appearing in the new season of the New York Festival of Song under the auspices of the beloved Steven Blier.
He will be joined by the amazing mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey in a musical birthday
tribute to the great American composer Ned Rorem. Although Rorem wrote opera, the concert will present highlights from his successful
career as a songwriter. Rorem has been dubbed "America's Schubert" because of the 500 songs that he has written in his 90 years, many of which regularly appear on recital programs. Lindsey and Garland will also perform works by Rorem's friends and
inspirations, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Bowles, Benjamin
Britten, Theodore Chanler, Aaron Copland, Noël Coward, Francis Poulenc,
and Virgil Thomson.
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem, who was born on October 23, 1923 in Richmond, Indiana, is expected to be in attendance. Steven Blier and Michael Barrett will perform on the piano. The concert is November 5th at 8 PM. You can purchase tickets online or by calling 212-501-3330.
The remainder of the NY Festival of Song season includes "Cubans in Paris, Cubans at Home" on December 5 featuring soprano Corinne Winters, tenor Jeffrey Picón and baritone Ricardo Herrera, as well as "Warsaw Serenade" on February 18 with the talented tenor Joseph Kaiser, who will be joined by soprano Dina Kuznetsova.
Andrew Garland working out in his Barihunk tee-shirt
The Cincinnati Opera has announced its casting for next season and it is delightfully laden with some of opera's most popular barihunks. Fans of Daniel Okultich can see him twice, as the former Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music graduate appears as Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen and as Giove in Cavalli's La Calisto. Andrew Garland will also appear in La Calisto as Mercurio.
La Calisto willrun fromJuly 17-27, 2014 at the Corbett Theater in
the School for Creative and Performing Arts near Music Hall. The cast also includes male soprano Michael Maniaci as Endimione, Jennifer Johnson Cano as Diana/Destino, Alexandra Deshorties as Giunone, Aaron Blake is Pane/Natura and bass Nathan Stark as Sylvano.
Fans of Andrew Garland can purchase his amazing CD American Portraits at the GPR Records website. It includes songs by Stephen Paulus, Jake Heggie, Lori Laitman and Tom Cipullo. You won't be disappointed!
Andrew Garland
Okulitch will be opening the season in Bizet’s Carmen on June 12th and the cast includes Stacey Rishoi in the title role, William Burden as Don José, Jessica Rivera as Micaela and Nathan Stark as Zuniga.
Gabriel Preisser backstage in Philadelphia for Silent Night
July 10 and 12 they will be presenting the Pulitzer Prize-winning
opera by Kevin Puts, Silent Night, which is filled with baritones. The
performances will take place near the 100th anniversary of the outset of
World War I. A number of baritones are reprising roles from the
productions in Minnesota and Philadelphia, including Gabriel Preisser as
Lt. Gordon, Craig Irvin as Lt. Horstman and Andrew Wilkowske as
Ponchel.
Also in the cast are Thomas Blondelle as Nikolaus Sprink, Erin Wall as Anna Sorensen, barihunk Phillip
Addis as Lt. Audebert and the gifted young tenor Thomas Glenn as Jonathan Dale.
