International Piano Festival - Thomas Bagwell, Piano and Christopher Dylan Herbert, Baritone
Tuesday, July 13
8:00 pm
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Biography
Thomas Bagwell
Called by Marilyn Horne “a pioneer for his age,” Thomas Bagwell is well-known as a pianist in song recital and chamber music. His appearances as a collaborative pianist have taken him to such venues as New York's Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein, the Concertgebouw, and numerous halls across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Japan. Thomas Bagwell’s activities as a coach and teacher have led to invitations to give master classes for colleges and apprentice programs in opera companies. He was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera for nine seasons, and has served in the same capacity for many seasons at the Washington National Opera, the Santa Fe Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
Thomas Bagwell has partnered in recital such singers as Marilyn Horne, Renee Fleming Susan Graham, Denyce Graves, Frederica Von Stade, Andrea Rost, Kristine Jepson, James Morris, Roberta Peters and Lucine Amara. His recital partnerships with the rising generation of singers include Elaine Alvarez, Eric Cutler, Gregory Turay, Rinat Shaham, Thomas Meglioranza and Jesse Blumberg. In the field of chamber music, Mr. Bagwell has been a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival and has performed recitals with violinists Midori, Miranda Cuckson and Scott St. John, with whom he made a critically acclaimed CD, now available on itunes, of works by Antonin Dvorak on the Marquis Classics label. Miranda Cuckson and Mr. Bagwell performed the ten Beethoven Sonatas for violin and piano in a three part series at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in the spring of 2009.
Thomas Bagwell has received degrees from the Mannes College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and has studied with Warren Jones, Graham Johnson, and Edna Golandsky. After his formal studies, Mr. Bagwell pursued additional training with Elly Ameling and Rudolf Jansen at the Academie Villecroze.
Mr. Bagwell organized and performed several concert series in New York at the Austrian Cultural Forum including a seven part Hugo Wolf festival, a three part Gustav Mahler festival which included the premiere of his piano four-hands arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde, a Schubert festival, and many individual concerts. He was co-artistic director for an Austrian Lieder festival in Washington DC at the Austrian Embassy, where he has performed many times.
His performing schedule for the 2010-2011 season includes three recitals with the Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York, of which he is an advisory board member, featuring six young singers hand picked by the Foundation for their abilities as recitalists. He will perform at Zankel Hall in conjunction with the American Opera Projects. Recent performances include a concert at the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center with soprano, Elaine Alvarez, sponsored by the Vocal Arts Society, a recital of songs and piano pieces by Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel in New York (including two world premieres),and a recital with internationally known soprano, Renee Fleming, at the State Department in Washington, DC for Hillary Clinton. Other collaborations with Renee Fleming have included preparing her for performance of Messiaen’s nine part song cycle, “Poemes pour Mi,” with the New York Philharmonic, a performance that was broadcast live on television and radio.
As a teacher of opera and art song, Thomas Bagwell has been on the faculty of Yale University and currently teaches at the Mannes College of Music, where he teaches collaborative piano as well as classes for singers in operatic repertoire. He has taught master classes at the Santa Fe Opera, New Jersey Opera, Simpson College, Portland State University and was the keynote teacher at the Oregon chapter of NATS at the Lewis and Clark College in January 2008. In the summer of 2009 he taught and performed at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and will teach at the New Jersey Opera studio program and the CoOPERAtive programs in the summer of 2010, both in Princeton, New Jersey.
Christopher Dylan Herbert
Christopher Dylan Herbert has received acclaim for his “smooth baritone voice”, his “consistently warm sound” and his “versatile dramatic abilities”. He recently won an encouragement award from the Sullivan Foundation, garnered the French Consulate Award in the Gérard Souzay Competition, received third prize in the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition, and was a finalist in the Liederkranz Foundation Competition.
During 2009, Mr. Herbert performed the role of Sid in Britten’s Albert Herring with Opera Vivente, the role of Connie in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, and the role of Il prigioniero in Mascagni’s Il piccolo Marat with Teatro Grattacielo in Avery Fisher Hall. Concert appearances included Nancy Wertsch’s The Seven Last Words of Christ with St. Joseph’s Chorale and a benefit concert entitled Songs for Our Future featuring prominent Yale University alumni in the arts. Performances this season include the role of Henrik in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at Opera Theatre Saint Louis, the baritone solos in Monteverdi’s Vespers at Saint Thomas Church 5th Avenue and various recitals with renowned pianist Thomas Bagwell.
Previous seasons have brought Mr. Herbert to many venues throughout the United States. At the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, he performed in recitals, operas, and master classes by luminaries Marilyn Horne, Warren Jones, Lotfi Mansouri and Christopher Larkin. Roles in Santa Barbara included William Williamson in Bolcom’s A Wedding and Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème. Mr. Herbert also appeared at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he performed scenes from Sweeney Todd (Anthony), Merrily We Roll Along (Frank), and Evening Primrose (Charles) in A Sondheim Celebration with the Boston Pops conducted by Keith Lockhart at Boston's Symphony Hall and at Tanglewood's Koussevitsky Music Shed. Further appearances at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall included Phoebus in Bach's Cantata 201: Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan under Craig Smith, a song master class with James Levine, a fellowship recital of 20th century Finnish music, and an all-Stravinsky vocal chamber music concert.
Mr. Herbert has performed Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas with the Mark Morris Dance Group and with the Bronx Opera, where he also sang Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. He has toured with the Boston Pops in a production entitled Make Mine Bernstein. He appeared as Dandy and Barney in The Ballad of Baby Doe, as well as in excerpts from The Magic Flute (Papageno) and The Pearlfishers (Zurga) at Central City Opera. Other engagements have included Pluto in Orpheus in the Underworld at Opera Vivente, Njegus in Die lustige Witwe with Mobile Opera, the role of the Pilgrim-Monk in Britten’s Curlew River with Opéra Rouen at the Japan Society of New York, and the Puritan Leader in Gluck’s Alceste (co-production between Opera Boston and Boston Baroque). His Lincoln Center debut was as the baritone soloist in Farewell to Music with the Christopher Caines Dance Company.
In addition to his opera and oratorio experience, Mr. Herbert is an accomplished recitalist, and has interpreted art songs from a variety of time periods and countries, ranging from Medieval to twenty-first century and from Brazil to Poland. His notable recitals include those at Tanglewood, Central City, Harvard University's Paine Hall, and Yale University's Sudler Hall. Mr. Herbert holds a B.A. in Music and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Yale University and an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. He also serves as the Director of Advancement for the charitable institution Sing for Hope.
