Magnificence in the Meticulous Detail

Marvel at the splendor of Mozart’s sacred choral works and the soaring lyricism of his “Exsultate, jubilate,” even as you luxuriate in the intricately textured detail that PBO’s period-authenticity lays bare. Alleluia, alleluia! Nic McGegan leads the Orchestra and Chorale with full forces to welcome you to a new season of transcendent music.

MOZART Litaniae Lauretanae BMV in D Major, K. 195
MOZART Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165
MOZART Mass No. 15 in C major, “Coronation”

Nicholas McGegan, conductor
Camille Ortiz, soprano
Meg Bragle, mezzo-soprano
James Reese, tenor
Dashon Burton, bass-baritone
Philharmonia Chorale, Bruce Lamott, director

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Wednesday October 3 @ 7:30 pm | Bing Concert Hall, Stanford
Friday October 5 @ 8 pm | Herbst Theatre, San Francisco
Saturday October 6 @ 8 pm | First Congregational Church, Berkeley
Sunday October 7 @ 4 pm | First Congregational Church, Berkeley

CAMILLE ORTIZ – soprano

Internationally recognized for her compelling performances of baroque and concert repertoire, native Puerto Rican soprano Camille Ortiz is quickly establishing herself as a leading artist in standard operatic roles. Recent 2018 season appearances include Gilda in Rigoletto, Micaëla in Carmen, Valencienne in The Merry Widow, Marguerite in Faust, Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, and Maria in West Side Story as the resident soprano with Gulfshore Opera in Naples, FL. Recent summer concerts include a Florence debut as soprano soloist for Rutter’s Requiem, J. Rutter conducting the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina; recitals in Leipzig; and Schubert’s Mass in G-major and Vivaldi’s Gloria in Syros, Greece with the International Festival of the Aegean. The 2018-2019 season sees a return to San Francisco for the “Mozart Magnified” series with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra featuring “Exsultate, jubilate,” the Coronation Mass in C major, and “Litaniae Lauretanae;” a Houston debut as Poppea in Handel’s Agrippina with Ars Lyrica Houston, and a return to Gulfshore Opera as Norina in Don Pasquale.

The 2017 season saw her appearance as a leading soprano soloist in the award-winning revival of Rameau’s Le Temple de la Gloire, a co-production of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and the San Francisco based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan and directed by Catherine Turocy; Orchestra of New Spain’s Misa Flamenca; Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C Major for the International Festival of the Aegean in Syros, Greece and a full recital for the Dallas Bach Society titled “Coloratura Furiosa,” including works by Vivaldi, Rameau, Purcell, Bach and Handel.

2016 appearances include the roles of La Musique in Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants with the Dallas Bach Society; Quiteria in Telemann’s Don Quichotte with Orchestra of New Spain; Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with the Fillmore Opera Studio.

The 2014 season included her Carnegie Hall debut as the soprano soloist for Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living; the soprano solo in John Rutter’s Mass of the Children under Rutter’s baton, Festival of the Aegean; Musetta in La Bohème as well as art song concerts for the Berlin Opera Studio.

She is the winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation Encouragement Award (2008); and a finalist in both the Liederkranz competition, lieder division (2009), and the Sergei and Olga Koussevitzky Young Artists Competition (2010). Ms. Ortiz is on the faculty of Florida Southwestern State College and the Greek Opera Studio, and is a clinician at Florida Gulf Coast University and Ave Maria University. She acquired a DMA in voice performance and pedagogy from University of North-Texas, where she was a Teaching Fellow.

MEG BRAGLE  – soprano

Widely praised for her musical intelligence and “expressive virtuosity” (San Francisco Chronicle), American mezzo-soprano Meg Bragle is quickly earning an international reputation as one of today’s most gifted and versatile mezzo-sopranos.

Frequently a featured soloist with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, she made her BBC Proms debut with them singing Bach’s Easter and Ascension Oratorios, has performed with them at the Leipzig Bachfest and the Prague Spring, Luzerne, Aldeburgh and Brighton festivals, and has made four recordings with the group including the recently released Bach B Minor Mass.

Ms. Bragle has sung in North America and Europe with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Violons du Roy, Apollo’s Fire, and the Dunedin Consort.  She has also appeared with many symphony orchestras in the US and Canada including the Houston (Beethoven’s Mass in C Minor), Indianapolis (Mozart’s Requiem), Pacific (Handel’s Judas Maccabeus), and Colorado (Mendelssohn’s Elijah) Symphonies; the National Arts Center Orchestra (Messiah) and a series of concerts with the Calgary Philharmonic including Handel’s Messiahand Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Highlights of her 2016/17 season include appearances with Milwaukee Symphony (Mozart’s Requiem), Cincinnati Symphony (Bach’s Mass in B Minor), St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater), American Bach Soloists (Handel’s La Resurrezione), Dunedin Consort (Handel’s Messiah), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Bach Lutheran Masses), and Early Music Vancouver (Bach’s Magnificat). Bragle also performs this season at the Winter Park, Carmel Bach and London Baroque Festivals, with Voices of Music, and Catacoustic Consort. Other recent highlights include Bruno Moretti’s Vespro with New York City Ballet, tours of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio with the Netherlands Bach Society and Bach’s Lutheran Masses with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Her recent opera roles include Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Dido and the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Dardano in Handel’s Amadigi, Amastre in Handel’s Serse, Speranza in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Ippolita in Cavalli’s Elena, and Elpina in Vivaldi’s La Fida Ninfa.

Ms. Bragle is an accomplished recording artist.  In addition to those with the English Baroque Soloists, she has made several recordings with Apollo’s Fire: Mozart’s Requiem (Koch), Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne (Avie), and Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine (Avie), and L’Orfeo (Eclectra). Other recordings include Cozzolani’s Vespro della Beata Vergine and Messa Paschalewith Magnificat (Musica Omnia), Music of Medieval Love with New York’s Ensemble for Early Music (Ex Cathedra), Toby Twining’s Chrysalid Requiem (Cantaloupe), Anthony Newman’s Requiem (Khaeon World Music) and Copland’s In the Beginning with the late John Scott and the Men and Boy Choir of St. Thomas Fifth Avenue and the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte on their own labels.

JAMES REESE – countertenor

James Reese is an avid ensemble, chamber, and solo musician whose singing has been praised for its “intensity and sensitivity…spirituality and eloquence.” (Chestnut Hill Local)

James’ 2018-19 season sees debuts with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, TENET Vocal Artists, Gallicantus, Bourbon Baroque Orchestra, and the Sun Valley Symphony, as well as return performances with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Lyric Fest, Philadelphia’s Bach @ 7 series, and Bach Vespers @ Holy Trinity Lutheran NYC.

In addition, James will appear with The Crossing, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, True Concord Voices and Orchestra, and Variant 6.

Previously, James has appeared in concerts with Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale; Masaaki Suzuki and Juilliard415; the American Classical Orchestra; and at the Ad Astra Music Festival.

In May 2018, he made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in Bach’s B Minor Mass with the New York Choral Society, directed by David Hayes. Of that performance, the New York Classical Review wrote, “the high, easy tenor of James Reese…floated beautifully on its own over the long, gentle lines of the Benedictus.” In June 2018, he made  his European debut with ensemble Seconda Prat!ca, in a recital with soprano Lucía Caihuela at Splendor Amsterdam.

An advocate for new music, James is a founding member of Philadelphia vocal sextet Variant 6 (variantsix.com). He has premiered works by Ted Hearne, John Luther Adams, Judd Greenstein, Joel Puckett, Gabriel Jackson, and others. James sings frequently with leading American choruses, including The Crossing, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Seraphic Fire, True Concord, and The Thirteen. He has recorded on the ECM, Innova, and Albany labels; including The Crossing’s release of Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century, which won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance in 2018. He also sang on 2016 Grammy-Nominated Bonhoeffer, released by the Crossing.

James is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he studied with Kurt R. Hansen, Alan Darling, and Donald Nally. He is a recent graduate of Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music, where he studied with James Taylor as part of the Yale Voxtet.

DASHON BURTON – bass-baritone

Praised for his “nobility and rich tone,” (The New York Times) and his “enormous, thrilling voice seemingly capable … [of] raising the dead;” (Wall Street Journal), bass-baritone Dashon Burton has appeared in the Brahms Requiem and Beethoven 9 with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra in the last two seasons; also the Mozart Requiem in the summer season at Severance Hall. He joined forces with Cleveland and Welser-Möst again in 2017/18 for reprise performances of their groundbreaking production of Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen and for performances of Beethoven 9 in their Prometheus Project, at home and abroad in Vienna and Japan.

This season, Burton also sings Beethoven Symphony no. 9 with the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston, in Sweden with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and with the Orlando Philharmonic. He appears twice at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of NY for Handel’s Messiah and in the world premiere of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road, and performs in David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dashon revisits the role of Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte on tour with Opera de Dijon in Limoges and Caen and sings recitals with Lindsay Garritson, and with Craig Hella Johnson for Conspirare in Austin. Throughout the season he continues to tour with the Grammy-winning contemporary vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, and ends the season at Grant Park Music Festival singing Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.

In key elements of his repertoire– Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions and the B minor Mass, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven 9, the Brahms Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem – Dashon is a frequent guest with ensembles such as Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, the Handel & Haydn Society and Boston Baroque; the Carmel and Bethlehem Bach Choir Festivals, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New Jersey, Oregon, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Forays into more varied repertoire in the last seasons have included his performances of Michael Tippet’s A Child of our Time at Harvard, Barber’s Dover Beach and Hans Eisler’s Ernste Gesaenge with A Far Cry chamber orchestra in Boston, Copland’s Old American Songs with the Kansas City Symphony, Schubert’s Die Winterreise with Diderot String Quartet, and performances and the recording of Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard with the vocal group Conspirare.

Burton’s opera engagements include singing Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte in Dijon and Paris, and the role of Jupiter in Rameau’s Castor and Pollux with Christoph Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques.  He has toured Europe in the St. John Passion with Christoph Prégardien’s Le Concert Lorraine, and in Italy with Maaski Suzuki and the Yale Schola Cantorum in the St. Matthew Passion, a work he also sang on tour in the Netherlands with the NNSO.

Dashon Burton’s Ravinia recital, based on his recent recording, Songs of Struggle and Redemption: We Shall Overcome, led off his 2016/17 season, followed by his performance of works by Aperghis and Stockhausen – as well as his own composition, Light Year, – in the 2016 Resonant Bodies Festival at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.  With Ensemble ACJW, he appeared in Arvo Pärt’s Passion in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall.

In 2012 Burton brought home prizes from the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the 49^th International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. These awards followed his First Place wins in both the 2012 Oratorio Society of New York’s Competition and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Competition for Young American Singers.

He began his professional studies at Case Western Reserve University and graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. Upon graduation, he was invited to join Cantus, a professional men’s classical vocal ensemble based in Minneapolis, and toured with them for four years. In 2009, Burton entered Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music, where he studied vocal literature including Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah under tenor James Taylor. He received his Master of Music degree in 2011.