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The American tenor, Carl Halvorson, is in demand internationally as a concert, opera and recital artist. Since his auspicious debut under the sponsorship of Young Concerts Artists, he has given over eighty solo recitals in America and in Europe. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall (Songmaker's Almanac), the Concertgebouw, New York's Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, the National Gallery in Washington D.C. and the Gold Medal Artist Series at Ambassador Hall in Los Angeles. He has also performed at the festivals of Spoleto, Aspen, Tanglewood, Aldeburgh, Bergen International, the Newport Music Festival, the Carmel Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, and New England Bach Festival, and the Grant Park Festival, and he has sung with notable choral groups including Oratorio Society of New York, Cathedral Choral Arts Society in Washington DC and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. Halvorson has also had the distinction of participating in the 75th Birthday Tribute Recital in New York for the American composer Ned Rorem.
With a repertoire that extends from Haydn and W.A. Mozart to Benjamin Britten and Arthur Honegger, Carl Halvorson is in high demand on the concert stage. The tenor has performed with many major orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, and Saito Kinen Orchestra. He has performed under the batons of distinguished conductors such as James DePreist, Charles Dutoit, Claus Peter Flor, Raymond Leppard, Kurt Masur, Nicholas McGegan, John Nelson, Seiji Ozawa, Helmuth Rilling, Gábor Hollerung, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, George Hanson, Tõnu Kalam, Grant Llewellyn and Hugh Wolff. Orchestral highlights performed by the tenor comprise Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah and Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Arthur Honegger's King David and Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, L.v. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and the Symphony No 9, W.A. Mozart's Mass in C Major and Requiem, Dvorak's Dimitri, and Sergei Rachmaninov's The Bells. Other works include George Frideric Handel's Saul, the Messiah which Halvorson has sung with numerous orchestras coast-to-coast, and G.F. Handel's Judas Maccabaeus sung with the Bach Society of St. Louis and the Berkshire Choral Festival. Halvorson has also performed Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces along with the composer's In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, and he recently added Orff's Carmina Burana to his repertoire in engagements with the Bangor Symphony (ME), the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra (LA) and with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Halvorson gave the American premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Suite on Finnish Folk Tunes with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and recently performed the Dvorák Requiem with the Florida Orchestra.
Heralded for his performances of the works of Benjamin Britten, Carl Halvorson was invited to give the USA premiere of B. Britten's The World of the Spirit at Carnegie Hall. Also in concert, he performed B. Britten's St. Nicholas, the War Requiem, and the composer's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings which he toured throughout the USA with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble and reprised with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in Spain. B. Britten operatic engagements include The Rape of Lucretia and The Turn of the Screw at Berkshire Opera, and The Turn of the Screw with the Fort Worth Opera and The Minnesota Opera. Writing of his performance as Peter Quint, Alan Kozinn of The New York Times said "Carl Halvorson was a magnificent Quint. Physically and vocally agile, he moved easily through the serpentine coils of Britten's music, toying with coloration and vocal weight to make Quint what he must be: alluring and grotesque in equal measure." The tenor has also appeared with the Boston Lyric Opera, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Washington National Opera. Mr. Halvorson recently toured to London's Barbican Centre where he performed the title role in Philip Glass's opera Galileo Galilei. This past spring he traveled to Japan at the invitation of Seiji Ozawa to cover the role of Aegesth in the Tokyo Opera Nomori production of Elektra and returns to Tokyo to cover Elijah.
An active recording artist, Mr. Halvorson's performance of Haydn's Creation was recorded on the Newport Classics label, as was his performance of Cherubini's Médée at Alice Tully Hall. For BMG Classics, he has recorded Paul Bowles's The Wind Remains with EOS Music. His Lieder recording “Despite and Still”, with pianist Susan Almasi, is available on the Musical Heritage Society label. |
