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Apollo’s Fire’s St. John Passion:
a chat with tenor Nicholas Phan

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by Daniel Hathaway

PHAN-NicholasWhen Apollo’s Fire presents its four area performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion later this week under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell, the burden of storytelling will fall to tenor Nicholas Phan.

Although Bach assigned individual parts to singers who will take the roles of Jesus, Pilate, and other individual characters, Phan will narrate the Passion of Jesus Christ from the Gospel According to John. Bach’s two extant Passion settings are the closest the composer came to writing opera, and Apollo’s Fire promises to offer an especially dramatic version of the St. John.

[Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: tenor Nicholas Phan (Feb. 3)

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by Timothy Robson

Phan-HuangThe rising young American tenor Nicholas Phan joined pianist Myra Huang in a musically substantial and intellectually satisfying recital on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel on Wednesday, February 3. Phan has a clear, well-managed lyric voice, with surprising heft at musical climaxes. Myra Huang, a sensitive collaborator, played with technical mastery and supportive musicianship. [Read more…]

Oberlin Artist Recital Series: a conversation with tenor Nicholas Phan

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by Mike Telin

Phan-NicholasWhat makes a great art song composer? “They need to have a strong appreciation for literature,” tenor Nicholas Phan answered without hesitation during a recent telephone conversation. “I know it sounds strange to say, but there is a literacy to their compositions — they have to be able to paint the words through music.” On Wednesday, February 3 at 8:00 pm in Oberlin College’s Finney Chapel, Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang will present a program of works by four great art song composers as part of the Oberlin Artist Recital Series.

Named one of National Public Radio’s Favorite New Artists of 2011, Phan has quickly garnered attention for his performances with many of the leading orchestras in North America and Europe. A rising star of the opera world, Phan is also a champion of vocal chamber music. As a recording artist, his 2011 debut solo album, Winter Words, was included on the “Best of 2011” lists of The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, TimeOut NY, and the Toronto Star. [Read more…]

Phan & Huang to replace Relyea & Jones on Oberlin Artist Recital Series

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Phan-NicholasTenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang will step in to replace bass-baritone John Relyea and pianist Warren Jones on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel on Wednesday, February 3 at 8:00 pm. Relea has withdrawn from his entire tour, citing family issues. Phan will sing works by Robert Schumann, Benjamin Britten, Ned Rorem, and Jake Heggie. Relyea tickets will be honored at the door.

After summer triumphs on the road, Apollo’s Fire plans eight programs at home

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by Daniel Hathaway

SORRELL-JeannetteFollowing a series of sold-out concerts at Tanglewood and in England (London and Aldeburgh) and Italy, Cleveland’s baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire is busy putting the finishing touches on the eight programs they are planning around the area this season. We reached founder and artistic director Jeannette Sorrell to chat about last summer’s experiences and her plans for the season to come.

I began by asking about Apollo’s Fire’s debut at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts. “It was really fun,” Sorrell said. “We had no idea that we were going to be sold out at Tanglewood. It was really a personal homecoming because I had studied in the conducting class there back in 1989 and I have such moving memories of that summer working with Leonard Bernstein and Roger Norrington. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra: Bach and Orff with Walters and Feddeck (April 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

WALTERS-RobertPatrons who packed the four sold-out houses last weekend at Severance Hall came to hear Carl Orff’s spirited medieval cantata Carmina Burana, but they were also treated to the bonus of an elegant curtain-raiser in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in A for oboe d’amore and strings with Robert Walters on the solo line.

Bach — that great recycler — turned several wind concertos from his days as court composer at Köthen into harpsichord concertos for his coffee house concerts with the Leipzig University Collegium Musicum between 1729 and 1741. Though the originals have been lost, they can be reconstructed by clever musicologists, as an uncredited arranger did for BWV 1055.

James Feddeck, stepping in for Franz Welser-Möst last weekend, led a string section pared down to eight first violins, six seconds, five violas, four cellos and two double basses, creating an admirable balance between soloist and orchestra [Read more…]

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