Zachary Gordin running the show and putting on a show at Festival Opera

Zachary Gordin

Barihunk Zachary Gordin has worn many hats in his operatic career, from teacher, coach, manager and, of course, singer. His latest endeavor will be as Artistic Director of Festival Opera in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The company was founded in 1991 by Arizona Opera co-founder Dr. Theodore Weis and has had a rich and occasionally rocky history, including the West Coast premiere of Ned Rorem's Our Town and a highly acclaimed Star Wars-themed production of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio.

Gordin's first season will include a fully staged production of Carlisle Floyd's American masterpiece Susannah. The opera will feature soprano Shana Blake Hill in the title role, tenor Alex Boyer as Sam, baritone Philip Skinner as Reverend Olin Blitch and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu as Elder McLean. Gordin has even imported German bass-baritone Malte Roesner for the role of Elder Ott. Roesner made his acclaimed 2017 American debut down the road with West Edge Opera in Vicente Martin y Soler's The Chastity Tree. This will be Roesner's debut with the company.

Malte Roesner

Gordin will kick off the season himself in a recital with his frequent collaborator Brian Nies on May 28. The duo will perform Schumann’s Dichterliebe, along with songs by Jake Heggie, Reynaldo Hahn, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The two released an album of Hahn songs in 2017 called “Amour sans ailes,” which was was named Best Lieder Recording of 2017 by Voix des Arts.

Gordin previously performed with the company as Angelotti in Puccini's Tosca, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen,  Enrico in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Germont in Verdi's La traviata and Joseph De Rocher in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

Tickets for the recital and Susannah are available ONLINE.

Zachary Gordin in concert celebrating Reynaldo Hahn (and his new CD)

Zachary Gordin

Barihunk Zachary Gordin and accompanist Bryan Nies will perform a recital in celebration of the release of their CD “Amour sans ailes” on the MSR Classics label. The concert is at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in California on Saturday, August 25th at 7:30pm.
 
The concert is presented by Michael Morgan, Music Director of the Oakland Symphony and features a program of music by Hahn, Massenet, Fauré and Duparc.

The concert tells the story of the relatively unknown composer Reynaldo Hahn through his music, teachers, and musical contemporaries. The recital follows his path from a child prodigy and star of La Belle Époque, his return to a changed France post-WWI, and his struggles to find a new musical identity. 

Tickets are available online.  

Zachary Gordin releasing CD of Reynaldo Hahn

Zachary Gordin

Barihunk Zachary Gordin is releasing a CD of music by composer Reynaldo Hahn accompanied by his frequent collaborator Bryan Nies on the piano. The CD will be released on October 1st and is available for pre-order.

Gordin and Nies began their collaboration with a less than perfect production of Puccini’s Tosca, but recovered to join forces for numerous concerts, opera productions and recitals.
This disc marks the culmination of that artistic partnership, spanning more than ten years and many veins of repertoire.

This selection of mélodies, with a few exceptions (for musical flow and programming), is arranged chronologically and provides a window into Hahn’s development as a composer. The cycle Chansons Grises, written when he was only 12-15 years old, shows his prodigious talents and the influence of his teachers Fauré, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet from the Paris Conservatory, where Hahn was the rare exception as a particularly young student admitted into the esteemed school.

Zachary Gordin back in San Francisco for song recital

Fresh from his return appearance at the Olympic Music Festival, the ever popular Zachary Gordin returns to San Francisco for a song recital with accompanist Bryan Nies. The two will perform as part of the Old First Concerts series in the City by the Bay on Friday, August 15th.

The duo will perform songs of Reynaldo Hahn’s Chansons Grises, as well as his À Chloris, Dans la nuit, Trois jours de vendage, Néère, and more.  They will then switch to British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ song cycle The House of Life.

Tickets are available online.

Listen to Jonathan Beyer Live This Wednesday

Jonathan Beyer with Soprano Audrey Luna

Regular readers of this site will know that we've given barihunk Jonathan Beyer a lot of coverage for his uncanny ability to win singing competitions. Now you can hear this talented performer live on Wednesday, August 3rd no matter where you live. Beyer will be performing a recital that is being streamed worldwide.

The recital is part of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert series. Since their inception in 1977, the concerts have been presented free of charge each week before live audiences of 500. More than 1,600 free weekly concerts have been presented in the series over the course of the past 34 years. The series is modeled after chamber music concerts presented by British Myra Hess in London's National Gallery during the German blitz on that city during the Second World War.

 

The concert will be broadcast live on WFMT 98.7 FM in Chicago at 12:15pm CST (6:15 PM London).

 

Beyer's program includes music of Tchaikovsky, Reynaldo Hahn, Ernesto Lecuona, and selections from Copland's Old American Songs.  For more information click HERE.

 

If you're in the Chicago area, you can attend the concert for free at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington St. at Michigan Avenue). 

 

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Theodore Uppman sings Poulenc & Hahn

We really wish that more baritones would sing the gorgeous Reynaldo Hahn song À Chloris in recital. Although it has been historically sung by sopranos, it seems much better suited to for baritones. Here is one of our favorite barihunks of the past,  Theodore Uppman, performing À Chloris and three Poulenc songs, Attributs, Chanson à boire and La belle jeunesse. These were recorded in the 1960s with Allen Rogers on piano.

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