Hailed for his "unutterably moving" performances (Boston Globe), baritone Drew Poling has established a career of exceptional scope in the worlds of opera, lieder, oratorio, and contemporary music.
Although early in his career, Mr. Poling has worked with such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Robert Spano, Craig Smith, Oliver Knussen, and George Benjamin, among others. His festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, where he won the Concerto Competition in voice, as well as the Tanglewood Music Festival, at which he has been twice-honored to have been named a vocal fellow.
Mr. Poling's repertoire of operatic roles is long and varied and includes Count Almaviva, Marcello, Aeneas, Hérode, Gianni Schicchi, Samuele and Albert Herring's Mr. Gedge. He appears frequently with Opera Boston and is an original member of the Red House Opera Group.
An accomplished recitalist, Mr. Poling has appeared frequently with the pianist Darlene Lawrence. In 1997, he made his European recital debut at the Countess of Huntington Hall in Worcester, U.K. and in 1998 was invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to perform opera and lieder in Beijing and Shanghai. In Boston, Mr. Poling has appeared with pianist Kayo Iwama as part of the Cantata Singers's Chamber Series.
Mr. Poling is also an avid performer of new music and has sung the American debuts of several major new works. In 1999, he debuted George Benjamin's Sometime Voices, a piece the New York Times hailed as "a masterpiece". The following year, also at Tanglewood, he sang the premier of Param Vir's Ultimate Words: Infinite Song. He made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Oliver Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are and was featured to critical acclaim as the first Lion in Lucas Foss's Griffelkin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Mr. Poling reprised his role on the world-premier recording of the work recently released on the Chandos label.
Upcoming engagements include Bach's Magnificat with the Nashoba Valley Chorale; the role of Henry Kissinger in the Boston premier of Adams's Nixon in China; Curlew River in this summer's Red House Opera Festival; and a re-mounting of Griffelkin this summer on Long Island.
A native of Ottumwa, Iowa, Mr. Poling received his education at Georgetown University. He currently resides in Boston.
