Conductor Roster and Bios

Grant Gershon

Conductor Grant Gershon is equally at home with symphonic and choral music, opera and musical theater. Since 2001 he has been Music Director of the Grammy-nominated Los Angeles Master Chorale, which the Los Angeles Times has proclaimed “the most exciting chorus in the country under Gershon’s leadership.” In addition to his post with the Chorale, Mr. Gershon was named Associate Conductor/Chorus Master of the LA Opera beginning in the 2007|08 Season. His contract with the Chorale extends through the 2010|11 Season. The conductor, pianist and vocalist has expanded the Chorale’s repertoire considerably, conducting dozens of world, U.S., West Coast and Los Angeles premieres. He has conducted three recordings with the chorus, including two world premiere recordings on Nonesuch of works by Steve Reich — You Are (Variations) and Daniel Variations — and the world premiere recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s first choral work paired with Philip Glass’s Itaipú. Mr. Gershon recently conducted the Minnesota Opera’s world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s acclaimed opera, The Grapes of Wrath, and subsequent performances of the opera with the Utah Symphony. He has also guest conducted the San Antonio Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, Juilliard Opera Theatre, the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Finnish chamber orchestra Avanti!, among others. Mr. Gershon has served as Music Director of the Idyllwild Arts Festival Choir since 2003. He previously served as assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1994-97, and was Assistant Conductor/Principal Pianist with the LA Opera from 1988 to 1994, where he participated in over 40 productions and garnered a reputation as one of the country’s exceptional vocal coaches. Mr. Gershon currently serves on the USC Thornton Board of Councilors.

Anton Armstrong

Anton Armstrong is the Harry R. and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College and Conductor of the St. Olaf Choir. He assumed this position in 1990 following 10 years in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he served on the faculty of Calvin College and conducted the Campus Choir, the Calvin College Alumni Choir and the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus.

A graduate of St. Olaf College, Armstrong earned a Master of Music degree at the University of Illinois and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University. He holds membership in several professional societies, including the American Choral Directors Association, Choristers Guild, Chorus America, and the International Federation for Choral Music. Armstrong also serves as editor of a multicultural choral series for Earthsongs Publications and co-editor of the revised St. Olaf Choral Series for Augsburg Fortress Publishers. He is featured with André Thomas on an instructional video on adolescent singers entitled Body, Mind, Spirit, Voice. He is a contributing writer to Volume I of Teaching Music through Performance in Choir and a contributor to Way Over in Beulah Lan’ by André Thomas.

Armstrong is widely recognized for his work in the area of youth and children’s choral music. He served for more than twenty years on the summer faculty of the American Boychoir School, Princeton, New Jersey and conducted the St. Cecilia Youth Chorale, a 75-voice treble chorus based in Grand Rapids, from 1981–90. He has conducted the Troubadours, a 30-voice boys’ ensemble of the Northfield Youth Choirs, since 1991. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Boychoir School. In 1998, he began his tenure as founding conductor of the Oregon Bach Festival Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy.

Armstrong conducted the St. Olaf Choir in critically acclaimed solo concert performances at the 59th National Conference of the Music Educators National Conference, the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music, and the 1999 National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Chicago, Illinois. In 2005, the St. Olaf Choir shared the stage with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in presenting the finale concert for the national conference of the American Choral Directors Association at the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, California.

He has frequently conducted ensembles and appeared before regional and national gatherings of the American Choral Directors Association, Music Educators National Conference, Choristers Guild, American Guild of Organists, Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, Organization of American Kodaly Educators and the Orff-Schulwerk Association. In 1996 he was a featured clinician at the Fourth World Symposium on Choral Music in Sydney, Australia aned in July 2008 he was a featured clinician at the Eighth World Symposium on Choral Music in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Armstrong is active as a guest conductor and lecturer throughout the world, with speaking engagements in North America, Europe, Scandinavia, Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Venezuela, and the Caribbean. In 2003 he was honored to serve as the first Peter Godfrey Visiting Professor of Choral Music at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and in 2005, he served as the Visiting Housewright Scholar in the School of Music at Florida State University. In recent years he has guest conducted such noted ensembles as the Utah Symphony and Symphony Chorus, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Westminster Choir, the American Boychoir and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He has also collaborated in concert with Bobby McFerrin and Garrison Keillor.

In 1992 Armstrong made his European conducting debut at the International Band and Choir Festival in Brussels, Belgium, and he returned to Vienna, Austria, in 2000 to conduct the 25th anniversary concerts of this festival. He led the St. Olaf Choir on a concert tour of Denmark and Norway in 1993, which included a performance at the Bergen International Festival in Norway and in 1997 he conducted the ensemble in a four-week concert tour to New Zealand and Australia. In 2001 he guided the St. Olaf Choir on a three-week concert tour of Central Europe and returned to Norway with the choir for a three-week performance tour in June 2005 that included a performance for Queen Sonja of Norway.

In the summer of 2001 Armstrong conducted the World Youth Choir sponsored by the International Federation of Choral Music with concerts in Venezuela and the United States. In 2005, the St. Olaf Choir and Anton Armstrong performed for President George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush and their guests for the National Day of prayer held in the East Room of the White House.

In 2006 Baylor University announced that Armstrong had been selected from a field of 118 distinguished nominees to receive the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. The award is designed to honor great teachers, to stimulate discussion in the academy about the value of teaching, and to encourage departments and institutions to value their own great teachers. He spent February-June 2007 in residency at Baylor University as a visiting professor.

In 2008–09 Armstrong will conduct all-state choirs in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. In December 2008, he presented a three-day seminar in Israel, "The Hebrew Characters in the African American Spiritual," at the invitation of the Israeli Choral Directors Association in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. He is also leading choral festivals in the Smetana Hall, Prague, Czech Republic, as well as Carnegie Hall, New York, and the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. Additional guest conducting and lecturing engagements this season include appearances in Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, Kansas, Texas, and Kentucky.

Vance George

Vance George’s performances and recordings have been lauded by audiences and critics alike. Today he is guest conducting and mentoring young conductors after serving as Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus from 1983-2007. His understanding of large choral-orchestral works and repertoire for chamber choirs is unsurpassed. Noted American composer Conrad Susa says it best “Vance creates a sonority, a kind of sonic thumb-print for each performance.” George has conducted in the U.S, Europe and India and East Asia. In recent years has he led performances of Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Verdi and Stravinsky in Minneapolis, Spokane, Indianapolis, Akron, Salzburg, Sydney, Australia, the Berkshire Choral Festival and the Ventura Bach Festival.

His work embodies the legacy of the great maestros and mentors he has known as protégé and colleague, especially Kurt Masur, John Nelson, Helmut Rilling, Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Shaw, Julius Herford, Margaret Hillis, Robert Page, Otto Werner-Mueller, and Mary Oyer.

Born into a farm community in northern Indiana his formal musical training was at Goshen College and Indiana University. Teaching and conducting positions have been at Mendon, Ohio, Woodstock School in Northern India, the University of Wisconsin, Associate Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, the Blossom Festival School, Kent State University, the Phoenix Bach Choir and the San Francisco Symphony.

The San Francisco Symphony Chorus became one of the finest in the world during his twenty-three years as director. Vance George prepared and conducted the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in performances of the large choral–orchestral works as well as seasonal pops concerts including the Mass in B Minor, Messiah and Carmina burana. The Symphony won its first two Grammy awards in 1992 and 1995 for “Best Choral Performances” for Orff’s Carmina burana and Brahm’s Ein Deutsches Requiem. Additional Grammy-winning recordings featuring the Chorus include Stravinsky’s Perséphone and Mahler’s Third Symphony. They also received Grammy nominations for Mahler’s Second Symphony and Christmas By The Bay. The discography of the Chorus under his direction includes John Adams’s Harmonium, Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied; Grieg’s Peer Gynt; and a collection of Brahm’s choral works. Vance George is featured as conductor on Christmas By The Bay, Voices 1900-2000, a choral journey through the 20th century and on film the soundtracks of Amadeus, Godfather II and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. An Emmy was awarded for Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd available on DVD.

Maestro George, at home in choral styles ranging from medieval to contemporary, has specialized in the choral-orchestral tradition conducting the Passions of Bach and the Masses and Requiems of Brahms, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Verdi. His performances of twentieth century composers include Faurė, Poulenc and Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Walton, Vaughn Williams, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, and Meredith Monk.

Highly regarded as a teacher of conducting Vance George has presented numerous lectures, workshops and clinics at University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Eastman School of Music, The San Francisco Conservatory, Cincinnati Conservatory, Kent State University and the University of California, Berkeley. His conducting concepts appear in the The Cambridge Companion to Conducting, Cambridge University Press, 2003, My Life In Choral Music So Far for the Chorus America Journal, June 2006, and Choral Colors for the American Choral Director’s Journal, October, 2006 and October 2007.



Heinz Ferlesch

Born in Lower Austria, Heinz Ferlesch has successfully established himself as a conductor of his baroque orchestra Barucco, as well as a longtime choirmaster of Wiener Singakademie. He studied at the Anton Bruckner Conservatory Linz and at the University of Music and Performing Arts with Herwig Reiter and Johannes Prinz. At the age of 27 Heinz Ferlesch was appointed Artistic Director of Wiener Singakademie by the Vienna Konzerthaus, becoming the youngest Artistic Director in the choir´s history.

Within his career he has worked with Georges Prêtre, Franz Welser-Möst, Kent
Nagano, Fabio Luisi, Adam Fischer, Bertrand de Billy, Ton Kopmann, Helmuth Rilling and Simone Young.

Engagements of the Wiener Singakademie have included London, Zurich, Budapest, Venedig and New York. Close collaboration with orchestras like Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Zurich Opera House Orchestra have shaped the musical development of Wiener Singakademie and its Artistic Director.

In 2002, Heinz Ferlesch founded his orchestra Barucco and since then he has increased his appearances as an orchestra conductor. Barucco, a young ensemble consisting of international baroque specialists, focuses mainly on the music of the 18th century. Since its founding, the orchestra has been a regular guest at Vienna Konzerthaus and it is the orchestra in residence“ of the festival Vokalwoche Melk. For 2009 Heinz Ferlesch and his orchestra have been invited to perform at the International Baroque Festival at the monastery of
Melk.

Various CD recordings and broadcasts show the wide range of the orchestra´s repertoire: in 2004 the orchestra recorded music by Antonio Vivaldi for the Austrian broadcasting station ORF, in 2006 a live recording of Handel´s Judas Maccabaeus was released by the ORF Edition of Ancient Music. A recording of Handel´s Solomon is scheduled for release in 2009.

Heinz Ferlesch also works extensively with the choir Ad Libitum which he founded in 1993. This mixed choir focuses on a capella music and has been invited to Festspielhaus St. Pölten, to the Brucknerhaus Linz and various festivals. The choir has performed in England, Italy, Greece and Germany.

Conductor Ferlesch and his ensembles have been awarded various national and international prizes. In 2007 he was awarded the highly respected Ferdinand-Grossmann prize.

Montreal

Jane Glover

Recently named artistic director of opera at London's Royal Academy of Music, acclaimed British conductor Jane Glover has been Music of the Baroque's music director since 2002. She made her professional début at the Wexford Festival in 1975, conducting her own edition of Cavalli's L'Eritrea. She joined Glyndebourne in 1979 and was music director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera from 1981 until 1985. She was artistic director of the London Mozart Players from 1984 to 1991, and has also held principal conductorships of both the Huddersfield and the London Choral Societies.

Jane Glover has conducted all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain, as well as orchestras in Europe, the US, Asia, and Australia. Highlights of her concert career include her major South Bank series "Mozart Explored," "Music of Two Decades: The 1780s and 1980s" and "Mozart to Strauss" with the London Mozart Players; her débuts in New York (with Jessye Norman and the Orchestra of St. Luke's) and Vienna (with Imogen Cooper and the Sinfonia Varsovia); her 1995 performances of Britten's War Requiem at the BBC Proms and in Normandy; and the many concerts where she has premiered new works.

In demand on the international opera stage, Ms. Glover has appeared with numerous companies including English National Opera, Royal Danish Opera, Berlin Staatsoper, Glimmerglass Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Australia, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Theatre St. Louis, and Teatro La Fenice. Among other works, she has conducted all the major Mozart operas; numerous Handel operas including Giulio Cesare, Agrippina, Tamerlano, La Resurrezione, Theodora, and Ariodante; the Monteverdi trilogy; and many other early operas. She has also conducted Fidelio, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Albert Herring, The Turn of the Screw, Don Pasquale, Cenerentola, The Secret Marriage, Hansel and Gretel, and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Iphigénie en Tauride. She also collaborates closely with the Mark Morris Dance Group.

In addition to her appearances with Music of the Baroque, highlights of 2008–09 include The Turn of the Screw at Opéra National de Bordeaux, Semele at Milwaukee Opera Threatre, La Clemenza di Tito at Chicago Opera Theater, and The Rape of Lucretia at the Aspen Music Festival, as well as concerts with the London Mozart Players, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, and Philharmonia Baroque. Last season's engagements included Mozart Dances with the Mark Morris Dance Group in London, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; Don Giovanni at Chicago Opera Theater; Magic Flute with Simon Callow at Holland Park Opera; and King Arthur with the Mark Morris Dance Group at New York City Opera.

Jane Glover's many recordings feature a series of Mozart and Haydn symphonies for ASV and arias with Felicity Lott, all with the London Mozart Players, plus other recordings of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, Britten, and Walton with the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, and the BBC Singers. Her extensive broadcasting career includes the TV series "Orchestra and Mozart," and the radio series "Opera House" and "Musical Dynasties" (all for the BBC). Her book, Mozart’s Women, was published to great acclaim, in September 2005. It was nominated for both the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Non-Fiction. She is currently writing a book on Handel.

Jane Glover studied at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, where, after graduation, she did her D.Phil on seventeenth-century Venetian opera. She holds honorary degrees from several universities, and is a fellow of the Royal College of Music. She was created a Commander of the British Empire in the 2003 New Year's Honors.

Scheggino, Italy

Colin Baldy

Colin’s career encompasses performing, teaching, writing and directing. As a singer, he is known principally as a character baritone, having worked for many years with companies such as Garsington Opera, Opera Restor'd, The New Savoyards, Opera Interludes, Country Opera etc. Such roles have included Sempronio (Lo Speziale), Don Alfonso (Cosi fan Tutte), Geronimo (Il Matrimonio Segreto), Bartolo (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas) to name but a few. In addition, Colin has performed much contemporary music with groups such as the London Sinfonietta, Phoenix and New Chamber Opera. One of Colin’s signature roles is the soloist in Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, a role he has previously performed with various groups in the UK and Europe. On the concert platform, he has appeared with the Britten Sinfonia, the Ochestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Southern Camerata (under David Hill), L’Orchestra National de Picardie and L’Orchestra National de Lille, to mention just a few.

Colin has sung frequently on BBC Radios Two and Three, and has made several CDs; most recently appearing as Bass soloist in Bach's St John Passion (Naxos). In recent years, he has also enjoyed considerable success as a cabaret artist, performing the songs of Noël Coward and contemporaries.

As a teacher, Colin has had a long association with the University of Oxford, having been, for many years, the singing teacher at New College. Now, however, he splits his teaching between London and Umbria. He receives frequent invitations to teach around the world, and is a visiting professor at Utah State University (USA), and on the Cisternino choral course, Italy. He is also director of the Scheggino Advanced Course for Singers in Umbria.

Colin has directed productions of Cosi fan tutte (two productions), Le nozze di Figaro, Il Seraglio, Trial by Jury (three productions), Il barbiere di Siviglia, L'elisir d'amore, The old maid and the thief, L'enfant et les sortileges, Riders to the Sea, Dido and Aeneas and Venus and Adonis. He is Artistic Director of Hand Made Opera, which he co-founded in 2000.

In 2002, Colin published a book on vocal technique for the RSCM (Voice for Life, 5) and has also been published by The Guardian, Church Music Quarterly and The Independent. His latest book, The Student Voice, aimed at anyone who is serious about working on their voice, is published by Dunedin Academic Press in September 2008.