Artistic C0-Directors
Aaron Engebreth, baritone
Acclaimed for his “exemplary diction and rich baritone voice,” Aaron Engebreth enjoys an active solo career in opera, oratorio and recital, and has devoted considerable energy and time to the performance of new music, often collaborating with many of today’s foremost composers. He has been featured as a soloist in performances from Sapporo Japan's Kitara Hall, to Boston's Symphony Hall, to Le Theatre de la Ville in Paris. He gave his debut at Washington's Kennedy Center in 2008 as soloist in Faure's Requiem and Carlyle Sharp's Proud Music of the Storm. He has been a guest of the Tanglewood and Ravinia Music Festivals as well as the Portland, San Diego and Charlotte symphony orchestras.
Mr. Engebreth has received significant recognition for his interpretation of early music and is a frequent soloist with many of the country’s finest early-music organizations, including the American Bach Soloists, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Early Music Festival, Miami Bach Society, Boston Baroque, Boston Camerata, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and Musicians of the Old Post Road. Mr. Engebreth was a regular soloist and core member of Emmanuel Music from 2002-2008, joining a thirty-five year tradition of weekly performances of Bach’s sacred cantatas under the direction of the late Craig Smith. He considers this experience the highlight of his musical life thus far.
Mr. Engebreth works closely with both established and young composers. His early work with the composer Lukas Foss provided fostered a passion for premiering new works. Mr. Engebreth has collaborated with composers John Harbison, Libby Larsen, Thea Musgrave, Ned Rorem, Daniel Pinkham, Lee Hyla, Jon Deak and many others and often has the privilege of working with young composers on their vocal works.
Increasingly sought-after as a recording artist, Mr. Engebreth is featured on two operatic recordings with the Boston Early Music Festival and Radio Bremen, both of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Operatic Recording: the 2007 release of Lully's Thésée (also nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award), and the 2008 release of Lully's Psyché. He is featured in recordings of John Deak's The Passion of Scrooge with the Firebird Chamber Ensemble, Lukas Foss's oratorio The Prairie with Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Providence Singers, and he created the role of Jack Matthews in the premiere recording of Eric Sawyer's opera Our American Cousin, again with BMOP. In addition, Mr. Engebreth can be heard as the Policeman in Lukas Foss' opera Griffelkin on Chandos records, and as a soloist in Conrad Susa's Carols andLullabies on the Arsis Label. He began a multi-disc project this year recording The Complete Songs of Daniel Pinkham with the Florestan Recital Project on Florestan Records. While on the music faculty of Tufts University, he was twice awarded faculty development grants to study music of the French baroque in Paris. Mr. Engebreth has also served on the music faculty of the Boston Conservatory and is an artistic director of the Florestan Recital Project. He lives with his wife, Katherine and their three children, in Portland, Maine.