2223 monteverdi vespers – Apollo's Fire

KRISTEN DUBENION-SMITH

Recognized for her “velvety legato and embracing warmth of sound” (Washington Classical Review) and “lyric-mezzo of uncommon beauty” (The Washington Post,) mezzo soprano Kristen Dubenion-Smith enjoys an active performing career in oratorio and sacred vocal chamber music, specializing in music of the medieval, renaissance and baroque eras.

As a concert soloist, Kristen has earned recognition for her performances of the works of the high baroque, especially Bach and Handel. Her “ lyric-Mezzo of uncommon beauty” (The Washington Post) was praised following her December 2019 performance as Alto Soloist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with The Washington Bach Consort. Highlights from recent seasons include Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra and Bach’s St. John Passion with The Dryden Ensemble. In previous seasons, she has appeared as Alto Soloist in works such as Handel’s Messiah, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Praetorius’ Christmas Vespers and Mozart’s Requiem among others, with ensembles including Apollo’s Fire, Handel Choir of Baltimore, Opera Lafayette, The New Dominion Chorale, The Folger Consort, and Chatham Baroque. In the summer of 2019, Ms. Dubenion-Smith attended the American Bach Soloists Academy where she was featured in Bach’s Trauerode and Mass in B Minor. She is also a 2020 (transferred to 2022 due to the pandemic) Virginia Best Adams Fellow with the Carmel Bach Festival.

Starting in the fall of 2016, Ms. Dubenion-Smith joined the Choir of Men and Boys/Girls at the Washington National Cathedral as the first woman to be offered a position in this choir. She had previously served as cantor since 2011. In her time with the Cathedral Choir, she has sung for liturgies, commemorations, and events of national importance- most recently, the State Funerals of President George H. W. Bush and Senator John McCain, the internment of Matthew Shepard, the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony and Prayer Service, and the 9/11 services at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

As a professional choral singer, Ms. Dubenion-Smith performs regularly with Cathedra, Chantry, The Washington Bach Consort and the Grammy Nominated, NYC based, Clarion Choir. She also sings on the 2021 Grammy winning recording of The Prison by Ethel Smyth with The Experiential Choir and Orchestra. She can also be heard on commercial recordings with The Folger Consort, Apollo’s Fire, Cathedra, and Via Veritate.

In 2010, Ms. Dubenion-Smith co-founded the award winning, Washington D.C. based Eya: Ensemble for Medieval Music. Eya has been presented at a number of distinguished venues and series including the Academy of Early Music, National Gallery of Art, The Music Center at Strathmore, Washington National Cathedral, Columbus Early Music, and Dumbarton Oaks, in addition to numerous colleges, universities, and concert series across the east coast. The ensemble has been featured on Voice of America Radio, Millennium of Music on NPR, and is the recipient of the 2013 Greater DC Choral Excellence Award for Best Specialty Group: Early Music as well as a 2015 nominee for Most Creative Programming and 2018 nominee for Best New Recording.

To keep busy during the pandemic, Ms. Dubenion-Smith started a weekly series on her YouTube channel entitled Social DistanSING. Despite specializing in early music, she spans many genres of music on her channel, featuring music by Dolly Parton, Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Enya, Henry Purcell, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Benjamin Britten, Extreme, Hildegard von Bingen, Toto, Richard Einhorn, Elise Witt, and Frideric Handel as well as commissioned arrangements of hymns and popular music, specifically for her series, by dear friend and colleague, Carter Sligh.

Notable solo engagements for the 2021-2022 season include performances with The Johnstown Symphony (Handel’s Messiah,) The Washington Bach Consort (Bach’s BWV 188 and St. Matthew Passion,) Bach in Baltimore (Mendelssohn’s Elijah,) and the Cathedral Choral Society (Smyth’s Mass in G.)

Originally from Michigan, Ms. Dubenion-Smith attended Alma College (Bachelor of Music) before moving to Maryland to complete her studies at The Peabody Conservatory of Music (Master of Music) in Baltimore.

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REBECCA MYERS

Philadelphia-based soprano REBECCA MYERS is a soloist, vocal chamber singer, collaborator, recording artist, and creator in high demand. She has appeared on three GRAMMY®-winning albums, most notably as a soloist on The Crossing’s Born, winner of the 2023 GRAMMY® for Best Choral Performance. In recent seasons Rebecca has appeared as a soloist with The New World Symphony, Tempesta di Mare, Verità Baroque, Portland Baroque, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and TENET Vocal Artists. She appears regularly with Seraphic Fire, Lorelei Ensemble, Ensemble Altera, and The Crossing. Rebecca grew up in Cleveland, is a graduate of Orange High School, and is thrilled whenever she can come home to perform with Apollo’s Fire. She is proud to be the Artistic Director, and a founding soprano, for the cutting edge vocal chamber music ensemble, Variant 6.

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MOLLY NETTER

A versatile and joyous musician, Canadian-American soprano Molly Netter enlivens complex and beautiful music, both old and new, with “a natural warmth” (LA Times) and “clear, beautiful tone and vivacious personality” (NY Times). She can be heard on five GRAMMY-nominated albums since 2017 and has performed as a soloist with ensembles such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, the Boston Early Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire, Musica Angelica, Contemporaneous, Juilliard415, Heartbeat Opera, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. She has been a full-time member of the Choir at Trinity Wall Street since 2015.

Molly is an active performer, curator, educator and advocate of new music, regularly commissioning new works by living composers. Recent collaborators include David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Amy Beth Kirsten, Doug Balliett, Katherine Balch, Molly Joyce, and Jessica Meyer, among others. Notable chamber performance highlights include inaugural casts of Pulitzer-winning operas Angel’s Bone (Du Yun, 2015) and PRISM (Ellen Reid, 2017). She was a featured curator/performer on Trinity Wall Street’s 2018 acclaimed “Time’s Arrow Festival,” programming an eclectic evening of Barbara Strozzi paired with newly commissioned contemporary works. In 2020 she began commissioning an entirely new repertoire for self-accompanied singer and clavicytherium, emphasizing the florid voice, early music vocal techniques and improvisation as a bridge between style and genre.

Molly holds a BM in composition and contemporary voice from Oberlin Conservatory and an MM in early music voice from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. She is currently on voice faculty at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.

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ANDREW PADGETT

Praised for his “powerful baritone and impressive vocal range” (Boston Music Intelligencer) and as a “musicianly, smooth vocalist, capable in divisions” (Opera News Online), bass-baritone Andrew Padgett is an accomplished interpreter of both baroque and medieval vocal music. He has collaborated with several early music luminaries, and has been featured as a soloist in concert venues worldwide. Notable performances include his appearances under the baton of Masaaki Suzuki as the bass soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) at the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore and as the bass soloist in Bach’s Johannespassion (BWV 245) at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, NYC, as well as his Alice Tully performance as Harapha in Handel’s Samson (HWV 57) directed by Nicholas McGegan. He has also been featured as a soloist with The American Classical Orchestra, Dartmouth Handel Society, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Brandywine Baroque, and Pegasus Early Music, among others.

As an avid performer of medieval and Renaissance music, Andrew has had the opportunity to study and perform with leading experts in the field, including Susan Hellauer and Benjamin Bagby. In recent years he has performed a broad selection of repertoire from the 15th century and earlier with TENET, The Thirteen, and Concordian Dawn.

Andrew holds a B.S. in physics, an M.M. in voice from UC Santa Barbara, and an M.M. in Early Music, Oratorio, and Chamber Ensemble from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. He is based in New York City, where he sings with the internationally-acclaimed Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, under the direction of Jeremy Filsell.

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JACOB PERRY

JACOB PERRY, tenor, is lauded for his stylish interpretations of early music. As a soloist, he lends his graceful sense of phrasing and luminous tone to engagements with the American Classical Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, Bach Collegium San Diego, Philharmonia Baroque, Portland Baroque, Tafelmusik, Tempesta di Mare, and Washington Bach Consort. In 2024, he was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award as a soloist on Apollo’s Fire’s recording of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Deeply immersed in vocal chamber music, Jacob performs with ensembles including Les Canards Chantants, Blue Heron, and TENET. Career highlights include his recent solo debut with the New York Philharmonic singing Handel’s Israel in Egypt, headlining the inaugural festival of Western Early Music at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music with Les Canards Chantants, and English Orpheus—a tour-de-force exploration of love songs and poems from the Elizabethan, Restoration, and early 18th-century periods he performed with Tempesta di Mare.

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ERICA SCHULLER

ERICA SCHULLER, soprano, brings vocal artistry, theatricality, and panache to baroque opera and concert performances across North America. She is a frequent soloist with Haymarket Opera in Chicago, the Boston Early Music Festival, Ars Lyrica in Houston, and New Trinity Baroque Orchestra, as well as Apollo’s Fire. Much admired for her comic acting, she won high kudos for two productions of Telemann’s Pimpinone with Haymarket Opera, where she played the lead female character, Vespetta. Her performance was described as “show stealing” by CHICAGO CLASSICAL REVIEW.

Erica was featured in Apollo’s Fire’s national touring production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo in 2018, singing the roles of La Musica and Euridice. She recently made her debut with Chicago’s Third Coast Baroque Ensemble in Handel’s Lucrezia. Upcoming engagements include the role of Poppea with Haymarket Opera in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea.

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EDWARD VOGEL

With a voice described as “velvet-toned” (BBC Music Magazine), and praised for his “appealing, midweight baritone” (The New York Times), “forthright agility and bold declamation” (Musical America), baritone EDWARD VOGEL is recognized as a sensitive, versatile performer. Recent highlights include solo appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Apollo’s Fire, the Tucson Symphony, and ensemble work with Theatre of Voices, the Bach Collegium Japan, and the Yale Schola Cantorum, with whom he has participated as a soloist in recordings on the Hyperion label. In 2024, he received a GRAMMY® nomination for his work as a soloist on Apollo’s Fire’s recording of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. An avid recitalist, Mr. Vogel’s specialties include British art song of the twentieth century, music from Medieval and Renaissance Iberia, and works by Gustav Mahler; his intimate interpretations of art song have been heard onstage at celebrated venues including the Tanglewood Festival and Wigmore Hall.

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STEVEN CALDICOTT WILSON

A member of the twice GRAMMY-nominated quartet New York Polyphony since 2011, tenor Steven Caldicott Wilson is thrilled to be making his debut with Apollo’s Fire in 2022 (Monteverdi Vespers and Handel Messiah). He was an inaugural member of The Leonids with Chor Leoni Vancouver in May 2022, where he will return in 2023, and he will return to engagements with Schola Antiqua in Chicago and Milwaukee in 2022. Past solo appearances include Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Symphony Hall Boston, multiple Evangelist roles and Bach cantata recitals with Trinity Baroque Orchestra NYC, Chatham Baroque, TENET Vocal Artists, Clarion Orchestra NYC.

Founded in 2006, New York Polyphony is dedicated to historical performance of medieval and renaissance repertoire as well as modern commissions and educational outreach. Noteworthy engagements include the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Boston, 2013 Taipei International Choral Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, Wigmore and Cadogan Halls London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg (Germany), Festival Internacional de Música Abvlensis (Spain), Stavanger Kammermusikkfestival (Norway), Cartagena Festival International de Música (Colombia), Early Music Vancouver.

A native of Virginia and now based in Chicago, Steven is an enlisted veteran of the United States Air Force Band Singing Sergeants (2001-2005) and a graduate of Ithaca College (BM) and Yale University (MM).

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“The U.S.A.’s hottest baroque band.” –CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE (UK)