Christopher Herbert in revolutionary Wall Street concert

Christopher Herbert

On April 21st, Barihunk Christopher Herbert will return to Trinity Wall Street for a concert that's part of a series called "Revolutionaries: The late works of Beethoven & Ginastera." He will be the baritone soloist along with NOVUS NY, Trinity Wall Street's contemporary music orchestra, in both the Ginastera Cantata Bomarzo and Faure's Requiem.

Ginastera played a key role in the unrest that led to the Argentine Revolution of the 1960s and '70s. Having lost an early teaching position for protesting the dismissal of his colleagues, he went on to lose his directorship of the conservatory that he himself had founded, for resisting orders to name it for Eva Perón. Several of his works were banned in his homeland, and he spent much of his life in self-imposed exile.

Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1916 to a Catalan father and an Italian mother. In 1934 he won 1st prize of the musical society El Únisono for his Piezas Infantiles for piano. His next piece of importance was Impresiones de la Puna. As a young professor,  Ginastera taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín. In 1946-1947 he traveled to the USA on a Guggenheim fellowship and studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. Returning to Argentina, he co-founded the League of Composers and served as director of the Conservatory of the province of Buenos Aires in La Plata. He then taught at the Argentine Catholic University and also was a professor at the University of La Plata. Among his notable students was Ástor Piazzolla.

Christian Gerhaher sings the baritone solo from Fauré's Requiem:

Five of the seven sections of the Fauré Requiem were completed by January 1888 and performed that month at the Madeleine for the funeral of the architect Joseph Lesoufaché. Fauré continued to work intermittently on the Requiem, and by 1893 he judged the score ready to be published. For the 1893 version a baritone solo, two bassoons, four horns and two trumpets are added to the original scoring. When possible Fauré employed a mixed choir and a female soprano soloist, partly because the soprano lines, particularly the solo in the Pie Jesu, are difficult to sing and demand excellent breath control, easier for adult women than for boys.

You can see the entire Revolutionaries concert schedule HERE. The concert will be available online.

Watch Chris Herbert in Britten tribute

Chris Herbert & Timothy Long on the Martha Stewart weddings site

A few months ago we posted about the upcoming bicentenary tribute to British composer Benjamin Britten. The November 26th concert with barihunk Chris Herbert and his husband Timothy Long is already available online for viewing on the Trinity Wall Street  website. It's a wonderful performance with a great preface to the music provide by the scholarly Herbert.

The ongoing festival is exploring the British composer’s orchestral, vocal and chamber works and continues into December.

On Thursday, December 12th at 1pm you can hear tenor Steven Caldicott Wilson and Timothy Long perform Britten's "Folksongs; Who are these children?" and Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder."

On Monday, December 30th at 1pm, you can catch Chris Herbert again at St. Paul’s Chapel (Broadway at Fulton) for a concert that includes Bach's Cantata BWV 125: "Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin; BWV 10: Meine Seel erhebt den Herren" and Britten's "Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi." He'll be joined by tenor Steven Caldicott Wilson, countertenor Geoffrey Williams, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra; and Choir of Trinity Wall Street under the baton of Julian Wachner.

Barihunks perform at Britten Centenary Celebration

Next weekend there will be a 2-day centenary celebration of composer Benjamin Britten's work presented by the 5ive Boroughs Music Festival. It kicks off on Saturday, October 19th at the Brooklyn Historical Society at 128 Pierrepont Street. There will be three concerts at 1 PM, 4 PM and 7 PM. The 4PM concert will feature barihunk Christopher Dylan Herbert in a program of canticles, the Hymn to St. Cecilia and Selected Purcell Realizations.

Other singers include tenor Alex Richardson, soprano Karen Wierzba, soprano Martha Guth, countertenor Geoffrey Williams, tenor Steven Caldicott Wilson, soprano Tami Petty, mezzo Eve Gigliotti, tenor Dominic Armstrong and tenor Kyle Bielfield.

On Sunday, October 20th, the celebration continues in Manhattan with barihunk Michael Kelly in both shows, which start at 1 PM and 4 PM. The 1 PM program includes Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Winter Words and On This Island. The 4 PM program includes Holy Sonnets of John Donne, selected French Folk Songs, excerpts from Who Are These Children, selected English and Irish Folksongs, The Red Cockatoo and excerpts from Juvenilia. Performances will be at the Baruch Performing Arts Center at 55 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

Other singers include soprano Mary Mackenzie, tenor Michael Slattery, soprano Martha Guth, mezzo Naomi O’Connell and tenor Nicky Spence. Noted accompanist Malcolm Martineau will perform at teh 4 PM show.
 
Tickets start at $15 for individual concerts and are available online.

  
Who gets the money for the Charity Calendar? 

This year we're looking for originality on Facebook and Twitter. We'll consider any idea that involves young artists, not just young artist programs...video projects...recital ideas...you name it.

Most LIKES on Facebook and most retweets on Twitter will increase your odds of winning.  (Use #Barihunks2014). Post your comments to our Facebook feed with who you should think is deserving of the a charitable contribution and why.

Upcoming NY concerts

There are four amazing concerts coming up in New York City that all feature barihunks.

Michael Kelly

On January 28th, Michael Kelly is part of the Cosmopolis concert at Merkin Concert Hall. The chamber concert includes works by four composers from across the globe written for strings, winds, piano and baritone. Kelly will perform Mohammed Fairouz's song cycle "Furia" written for baritone, string quartet and wind quartet. The program also includes works by Ned Rorem, Kaija Saariaho and Toru Takemitsu.

Click HERE for tickets and additional information.

Randal Turner (top) & Michael Weyandt (bottom

)

On February 2, operamission will present and evening of music by Francis Poulenc at the Gershwin Hotel. The concert includes about a dozen performers including barihunks Michael Weyandt, Randal Turner and Ross Benoliel. Randal Turner will be opening in Rufus Wainwright's opera "Prima Donna" at New York City on February 19th. Click HERE for tickets.

Chris Herbert

For all of you lovers out there, New York Polyphony will be performing "A Renaissance Valentine" on February 12 at Columbia University's Miller Theater. The program, which also ventures beyond the Renaissance, includes music by Lassus, Dowland and Purcell. Barihunk Christopher Herbert is part of the ensemble and this group is not be missed. If you haven't seen them yet, grab two tickets and take your favorite valentine.

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann and barihunks Rene Pape and Boaz Daniel

Lastly, we want readers to know about a live broadcast this week of Verdi's "Don Carlo." The performance originally included Mariusz Kwiecien as Rodrigo, but he withdrew due to ongoing issues with his back that he injured during a Met rehearsal of Don Giovanni. The "Hot Pole" will be replaced by Boaz Daniel. Even without Kwiecien, this production still had quite a bit of eye candy, including tenor heartthrob Jonas Kaufman and barihunk Rene Pape.

The performance begins at 5 PM German time (11 AM EST/8 AM PST). Click HERE for the broadcast.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Four-Time Emmy Award-Winner Glen Roven's Barihunk Concert and CD's

Branch Fields

The Winter Rhythms Festival, which runs from December 1-11 in New York City is a series of concerts that includes Cabaret, Jazz, Hip Hop, Broadway and Classical Music. On December 5th, the festival will include "I Hate Music: The Songs and Music of Glen Roven" with barihunks Chris Herbert and Branch Fields. The baritones will be joined by opera diva Lauren Flanigan, the Broadway Youth Ensemble, TV actor and Broadway star Jeff McCarthy, OBIE Award-winner Donna Lynne Champlin, jazz vocalist Luba Mason, award-winning singer Nikolas King and opera tenor Matthew Garrett.

Christopher Herbert

Christopher Herbert will be performing one of Roven's most beautiful songs, "Upon Westminster Bridge" with words by William Wordsworth. Branch Fields will be performing Mozart's "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni. For tickets call (212) 868-4444 or visit Smarttix.com. Urban Stages is located at 259 West 30th Street in Manhattan.

Fans of Christopher Herbert can also catch him with New York Polyphony, which will be performing in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Minnesota during December. Check out their website for touring information. We can assure you that this is an ensemble that you won't want to miss.

Glen Roven has also recently wrapped up an innovative new CD of viola songs with barihunk and winner of numerous vocal competitions, Jonathan Beyer, (with a special guest appearance by his partner Brandon Cedel) on the GPR label. The CD is available for pre-order at the GPR website. GPR also has barihunk Daniel Okulitch's CD of great American composers available for sale. There is a special discount if you order both CDs.

Also, Christopher Herbert, Jonathan Beyer and Brandon Cedel are all featured in our 2012 Barihunks charity calendar, with all proceeds going to benefit young artist programs. Buy yours today by clicking HERE!

Barihunks Top 10 of 2010

We had some amazing highlights in 2010 and we want to share the “Top 10” with you. We are both amazed and pleased at the popularity of this site. Our network of fans and “scouts” across the globe has kept this site interesting and informative. Compiling this list was tougher than we imagined, but here it it:

HOTTEST BARIHUNK:

Reader's Top Pic: Gabriel Bermudez

This was a no-brainer. Pictures of Gabriel Bermudez in Poulenc’s “Les mamelles de Tiresias” drove traffic to the site in numbers that we had never seen and his post has remained the most popular each and every day since it debuted. We’ve learned that readers like to be titillated with a little skin and Bermudez delivered.


HOTTEST NEWCOMER:

Zach Altman: Readers can't get enough

We don’t want to say that we were surprised that a picture of  Zach Altman was incredibly popular, because he’s incredibly sexy. But we were taken aback at the staying power of the post, which continues to generate traffic to this day. We have to give and honorable mention to Jason Hardy, who appeared shirtless in New York City Opera’s Don Giovanni. We received an email from a soprano titled “Jason Hardy” and the body of the email read, “Who knew!!!”

HOTTEST U.S. DEBUT:

Belated U.S. sensation: Randal Turner

Somehow Europe managed to keep this American singer away from his native country. But in 2010 Randal Turner made his stage debut as a searingly hot Don Giovanni in Detroit and then followed it up with a recital in San Francisco highlighting American composers. He looked as hot singing Jake Heggie songs as he did singing Don Giovanni and chasing around the women of Spain, Italy, France…

HOTTEST BLOGGERS: 

Michael's on the Mike: Mayes & Rice

Blogging has become the realm of barihunks and Michael Rice’s OperaNow! and Michael Mayes’ “Texapolitan Opera” are the two hottest shows on the planet. And the two singers ain’t too bad either! An appearance by barihunk David Adam Moore on the Texapolitan Opera broadcast may have given us the best new term for 2011: The Full Okulitch. The term refers to a singer who appears in full frontal nudity on stage, which Daniel Okulitch did in the Los Angeles Opera’s “The Fly” a year before Gabriel Bermudez.

FOREVER HOT: 

Top Gunn

No one consistently gets fan mail and hits to the site like Nathan Gunn. He is popular across demographic groups, age groups and geographic borders. He is as sexy in his 40s as he was at the beginning of the career and the Wall Street Journal even wrote about his workout regime. Who else appeared in the New York Post because he made a woman faint?

HOTTEST MEDIA DARLING: 

Keith Miller: No wonder the media loves him

Former football player Keith Miller has captured the attention of the media with his exotic good looks and is poised to become the next Nathan Gunn. Runner up status has to go to Erwin Schrott and Paulo Szot, both of whom generate press anywhere that they go. Miller broke through the media clutter in 2010, which Szot and Schrott managed to do before 2010.

HOTTEST RECITALIST: 

Hot recitalist: Edwin Crossley-Mercer

Like Randal Turner, the European opera community has kept Edwin Crossley-Mercer to themselves. His recitals are worth an operatic pilgrimage. When we received emails about his recitals in English, French, German and Spanish, we knew that we had to check him out.

JUST PLAIN HOT: 

The Hot Pole: Mariusz Kwiecien in King Roger

This site was founded because two of us saw Mariusz Kwiecien in separate performances and were going to create a fan site. Instead we decided to seek out other hot baritones after reading about other barihunks on the  Parterre Box website. Of course, the Polish singer has the best nickname, as well: The Hot Pole.

HOTTEST GOOD GUY: 

The Newlyweds: Chris Herbert at his wedding with Aunt Martha Stewart

We love Chris Herbert because he’s smart, sexy, talented and gives back to the community. Herbert has devoted much of his time to "Sing for Hope," following in the path of mega-star Erwin Schrott, who regularly gives benefit concerts. He is currently on tour with New York Polyphony.

HOTTEST FUTURE SUPERSTAR:

Matt Worth: Talent you don't mind keeping an eye on

When we ask people in the opera world who is destined for stardom, the name of Matt Worth consistently comes up. We think that this hot young American will be the breakthrough star of 2011.

We should also mention Wes Mason, who had a breakthrough performance in "Before Night Falls" at the Ft. Worth Opera and proved that he has a place on the international opera stages of the world.

Have a great 2011 and keep in touch with us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Chris Herbert in Albert Herring

One of the best kept secrets in the opera world is Opera Vivente in Baltimore, which we've hailed as having some of the best marketing and hottest singers. They continue to hire the hottest barihunks and they've re-engaged Chris Herbert to play Sid in Britten's comic masterpiece Albert Herring.

Herbert's pictures from Opera Vivente's Orpheus in the Underworld remain some of the most popular on this site: http://barihunks.blogspot.com/search?q=herbert

But Herbert is as much brain as brawn (and that's doubly sexy). He writes insightful pieces about foreign affairs on the Huffington Post, the Foreign Policy Association, Ground Report and on his own blog. Check out: http://risingpowers.foreignpolicyblogs.com/author/christopherherbert/,
http://www.groundreport.com/ChrisHerbert, http://www.simpleintelligence.org/ and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-herbert-and-victoria-kataoka-rebuffet. Herbert is not some crazy opera singer ranting about foreign policy, he earned B.A. in Music and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Yale University and an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. [Too bad Miss California isn't this smart.]

The run of Albert Herring opens tonight and you can find out more at: http://www.operavivente.org/current.html

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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Chris Herbert at Grand Concours de Chant

Here's a shot of Chris Herbert at the Grand Concours de Chant competition in Austin, Texas where he was awarded a special merit award.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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Barihunk Chris Herbert Places in French Song Competition

Chris Herbert, one of our favorite singers at Barihunks, recently was awarded a special merit award at the Grand Concours de Chant competition in Austin, Texas. Herbert will be featured in a recital in Paris this November along with the other winners, Jeffrey Hill, Matthew Hayward and Benjamin Sieverding.

Also, Chris Herbert received twice as many votes on the online voting poll for best singer. Thanks to all of you who voted!

We would like to congratulate all of the winners, but we know who is going to look the hottest in a tux.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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The Last 30 Days: Our Three Most Viewed Barihunks

[Photos from top to bottom: Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Chris Herbert and Randal Turner]

I just checked my Google Analytics and FeedBurner stats. It's always fun to see what readers are enjoying and once again Teddy Tahu Rhodes is off the charts. He received 20 times more hits than our next closest barihunk. Also, perennial favorites Erwin Schrott and Nathan Gunn fell out of the top three, which is always a bit of a surprise.

Chris Herbert was the second most viewed barihunk and his photo shows why. Chris is as smart as he is sexy and he's destined to be a great lieder singer a la the other Christopher, the divine Mr. Maltman.

Joining the top three is Randal Turner, who is as sweet as he his cute. I'm glad that readers are viewing his posts. You can enjoy his beautiful singing at http://randalturner.com/.

For anyone reading barihunks who has a blog or website, please add a link to your site. It is greatly appreciated. The #1 site sending visitors to Barihunks is La Cieca's Parterre Box, which should be in your favorites list. View the site at: http://parterre.com/

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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VOTE for Christopher Herbert and Win Opera Tickets

OK, the Presidential election is over and the good guy won. We all learned about the importance of voting since the Bush-Gore debacle in 2000. We're probably all a little sick of politics after two years of non-stop campaigning, so why not turn to opera.

Now we can vote online for one of our most popular barihunks, Christopher Herbert, who is competing in the "Grand Concours de Chant 2009." The competition is to determine the next great singer of the French baritone repertoire. The competition is a tribute to the magnificent French baritone Gerard Souzay.

If you sign up and vote online you have the chance to win two tickets to the opera house of your choice. You must vote by February 28, 2009 at http://favacontest.com/vote.php. You also have to vote for three contestants and they've added wonderful sound clips. An international panel of judges will determine the winner, but the tie-breaker will be the public vote.

If Christopher Herbert wins, Barihunks will have to post more pictures. How's that for an incentive?

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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Martha Stewart's Barihunk Nephew

Keen-eyed Anonymous points out the barihunk Christopher Herbert, who has one of the sexiest posts on this blog, is the nephew of Martha Stewart. In this photo from MSNBC, they are shown together at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Bridge Dedication Gala on November 19, 2008.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

barihunk

Christopher Herbert sings Barber's "Dover Beach"

The adorable Christopher Herbert sings one of Samuel Barber's masterpieces. I think Samuel Barber would have enjoyed this performance. To see the previous post of Herbert "half-naked" click on http://barihunks.blogspot.com/search?q=herbert.

Herbert grew up in Connecticut and graduated from Yale with a B.A. in Music and Near Eastern Languages and Civilization. He has performed at Tanglewood, Central City Opera and with the Mark Morris Dance Company. Needless to say he has appeared in numerous Barihunk operas including Pearl Fishers, Don Giovanni (Masetto) and the Magic Flute.

You can contact this site at barihunks@gmail.com