Bach’s St. Matthew Passion

[box]Dear Apollo’s Fire Friends & Patrons,

All of us at Apollo’s Fire wish you peace and well-being during the Coronavirus pandemic. We are doing everything we can to ensure the health and safety of our cherished patrons, donors, staff and musicians. Governor DeWine’s recent ban on all mass gatherings of 100 or more gives us clear direction.

It is with heavy hearts that we announce, in accordance with the Governor’s ban, the cancellation of our performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Rocky River, Cleveland (Severance Hall), and Akron on April 1, 3, and 4 respectively. Though this news is disappointing, we look forward to bringing you this inspiring concert in a future season.

We will honor your wishes regarding your tickets. Three options are listed below. However, please know that our beloved musicians and guest artists are freelancers who face total loss of income in the next two months or more. Unlike symphony players, the early music players of the U.S. are not on salary. Apollo’s Fire is committed – with Passion. Period – to paying our musicians as much of their St. Matthew Passion fees as possible. However, the St. Matthew is one of the largest programs in our history, using over 65 musicians. We face over $170,000 in lost ticket revenue and touring fees due to cancellations this spring. It will be tough to help our musicians significantly, without your help.

Therefore, we humbly ask you to consider donating the cost of your tickets if you are able – so that we can pass the revenue along to our musicians (option 1).

TICKET OPTIONS:

  1. DONATE your ticket so that we can pay our St. Matthew musicians as much as possible. We will send you a tax-deduction receipt.
  2. EXCHANGE your tickets for a future Apollo’s Fire concert during the 2020-21 season or a future season.
  3. Receive a REFUND for the full value of the ticket. (Please let us know by April 30 if you choose this option.).

Our box office staff are standing by to fulfill your requests. Please email us at info@apollosfire.org or call 216-320-0012 x 1.

*NOTE: Our staff are working mostly remotely, but all voicemails and emails will be returned.

Just as Handel composed Messiah during a seasonal ban on opera performances, we wish to bring you musical inspiration during this pandemic shutdown. We hope you will enjoy our new “Music for the Soul” – a semi-weekly series of online programs featuring concert videos, interviews, and related reading – all for your pleasure at home. Click here.

Thank you for being part of the Apollo’s Fire family, and we wish you health and inspiration.

Sincerely,

Jeannette Sorrell, Artistic Director
Howard Bender, Executive Director[/box]

Bach’s resplendent masterpiece is rarely performed live, due to the extraordinary forces required: 2 orchestras, 2 choirs, soloists, and children’s choir. Jeannette Sorrell leads a dramatic presentation, with singers performing from memory in the character roles. Bach’s resounding sense of community envelopes the performance as the audience joins in singing the chorales – just as Bach’s congregation did nearly 300 years ago.

“Resplendent… the magnificent chorus [sang] to breathtaking effect.”
– THE NEW YORK TIMES (review of Apollo’s Fire’s St. John Passion, 2016)

PRE-CONCERT TALK with Rabbi Roger Klein, 1 hour before each concert.

Hear the Music

Coming Soon!

Meet the Artists

  • NICHOLAS PHAN
    NICHOLAS PHAN
    tenor
  • THEO HOFFMAN
    THEO HOFFMAN
    baritone
  • JEFFREY STRAUSS
    JEFFREY STRAUSS
    baritone
  • CARINE TINNEY
    CARINE TINNEY
    soprano
  • DANIEL MOODY
    DANIEL MOODY
    countertenor
  • TYLER DUNCAN
    TYLER DUNCAN
    baritone

Nicholas Phan,Evangelist
Theo Hoffman,Jesus
Tyler Duncan,Pilate
Jeffrey Strauss,Caiaphas (High Priest) – sponsored by Robert & Diane Walcott
Carine Tinney,soprano
Daniel Moody,countertenor

These concerts are made possible by the generous support of
Paul M. Angell Family Foundation
and Drs. Jeanne & Gregory Sorrell.

Ecce Homo, early 1700s (oil on canvas) , Murillo, Bartolome Esteban (1618-82) (follower of) / The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, USA / August Heckscher Collection / Bridgeman Images

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

NICHOLAS PHAN
tenor

Named one of NPR’s “Favorite New Artists of 2011,” American tenor Nicholas Phan is increasingly recognized as an artist of distinction. Praised for his keen intelligence, captivating stage presence and natural musicianship, he performs regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies. Also an avid recitalist, in 2010 he co-founded the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC) to promote art song and vocal chamber music.
In the summer of 2017, he returns to the San Francisco Symphony for Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette with Michael Tilson Thomas, to the Oregon Bach Festival, to the Thüringer Bachwochen’s Weimar Bach Academy, and to Wolf Trap for Carmina Burana with the National Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda. Highlights of his upcoming 2017/2018 season include his debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and the Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo for Britten’s War Requiem with Marin Alsop; and returns to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philharmonia Baroque, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony for Schubert’s Mass in E-flat with Riccardo Muti, and the Toronto Symphony for performances as the title role in Bernstein’s Candide. He also serves as artistic director of two festivals next season: Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago’s sixth annual Collaborative Works Festival, and as the first singer to be guest Artistic Director of the Laguna Beach Music Festival.

Mr. Phan has appeared with many of the leading orchestras in the North America and Europe, including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philharmonia Baroque, Boston Baroque, Les Violons du Roy, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, and the Lucerne Symphony. He has also toured extensively throughout the major concert halls of Europe with Il Complesso Barocco, and appeared with the Oregon Bach, Ravinia, Marlboro, Edinburgh, Rheingau, Saint-Denis, and Tanglewood festivals, as well as the BBC Proms. Among the conductors he has worked with are Marin Alsop, Harry Bicket, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Alan Curtis, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Charles Dutoit, Jane Glover, Manfred Honeck, Bernard Labadie, Louis Langrée, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, John Nelson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Helmuth Rilling, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Masaaki Suzuki, Michael Tilson Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst.

An avid proponent of vocal chamber music, he has collaborated with many chamber musicians, including pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Jeremy Denk, Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Myra Huang and Alessio Bax; violinist James Ehnes; guitarist Eliot Fisk; harpist Sivan Magen; and horn players Jennifer Montone, Radovan Vlatkovic and Gail Williams. In both recital and chamber concerts, he has been presented by Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. In 2010, he co-founded the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, an organization that promotes the art song and vocal chamber music repertoire of which he is Artistic Director.

Mr. Phan’s many opera credits include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. His growing repertoire includes the title roles in Bernstein’s Candide, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Fenton in Falstaff, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Lurcanio in Ariodante.

Phan’s most recent solo album, Gods and Monsters, was released on Avie Records in January. His first three solo albums, A Painted Tale, Still Fall the Rain and Winter Words, made many “best of” lists, including those of the New York Times, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe. Phan’s growing discography also includes a Grammy-nominated recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony, the opera L’Olimpiade with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Scarlatti’s La gloria di Primavera with Philharmonia Baroque, Bach’s St. John Passion (in which he sings both the Evangelist as well as the tenor arias) with Apollo’s Fire, and the world premiere recordings of two orchestral song cycles: The Old Burying Ground by Evan Chambers and Elliott Carter’s A Sunbeam’s Architecture.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Phan is the 2012 recipient of the Paul C Boylan Distinguished Alumni Award. He also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival and School, and is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He was the recipient of a 2006 Sullivan Foundation Award and 2004 Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation.

WEBSITE

THEO HOFFMAN
baritone

Theo Hoffman is among the most refined and dynamic classical singers of his generation. Hoffman debuts this season with Seattle Opera and Opera Philadelphia, and has been seen previously at Los Angeles Opera, Atlanta Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Des Moines Metro Opera.

Mr. Hoffman has concertized with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Wiener Akademie and Il Giardino Armonico at the Salzburg Mozartwoche, Marlboro Music, Orchestre National de Lille, Grand Teton Music Festival, Portland Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Music Northwest. He has appeared in recital at some of the world’s leading venues, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Alice Tully Hall.

Mr. Hoffman is the recipient of the 2018 Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, as well as awards from the Sullivan Foundation, the Gerda Lissner Foundation, and The Kurt Weill Foundation. Hoffman was a Grand Finalist in the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Hoffman is a graduate of The Juilliard School.

WEBSITE

JEFFREY STRAUSS
baritone

Praised as “an authoritative artist” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and “an elegant and energetic singer” (Seen and Heard International), baritone Jeffrey Strauss has performed with leading period music ensembles including Tafelmusik, the Consort of Musicke with Emma Kirkby and Anthony Rooley, the Taverner Consort under Andrew Parrott, The Handel & Haydn Society, Seattle Baroque, The Newberry Consort, and Tempesta di Mare, among many others. Trained at an early age in Jewish liturgical music by Cantor Daniel Gildar, he later studied voice and art song in London with Yvonne Rodd-Marling and Martin Penny, and in Paris with Gérard Souzay. He has been a regular soloist with Apollo’s Fire since 1995, and is especially known for his appearances in Handel’s Messiah, the Bach St. John and St. Matthew Passions, Sephardic Journey, O Jerusalem!, and music of Monteverdi including the 1610 Vespers, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, and the title role in L’Orfeo. A longstanding proponent of contemporary music, he has collaborated with Ralph Shapey and the Contemporary Chamber Players of the University of Chicago (Contempo), the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Pacifica Quartet, and Eighth Blackbird, and has premiered works by Babbitt, Bernstein, Axelrod, and Shapey. He has appeared twice with the Omaha Symphony, and performed the role of Mephistopheles in Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. An accomplished stage actor, his 2014 performance as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at the Lancaster Opera House—reprising a role he first played at age 17—was hailed as “masterful” (Buffalo News).

CARINE TINNEY
soprano

Carine Tinney began her musical studies, learning the violin and piano at Douglas Academy Music School, in Milngavie, Scotland. She studied at the Edinburgh Napier University under Andrew Doig and Paul Keohone, where she received the Harold Gray Prize for Solo Singing. Moving to Germany in 2011, Carine continued her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Germany where she graduated with two master’s degrees in Lied singing and in Opera under Gerhild Romberger and Manuel Lange.

During her time in Germany, Carine has worked as a soloist with renowned conductors Helmuth Rilling, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Jeannette Sorrell and Jonathan Cohen. Concert highlights include Mahler’s 2nd Symphony at the Berlin Philharmonie, Bach’s St Matthew Passion at Centennial Hall, Rock Island (USA), Händel’s Messiah with the St Paul’s chamber orchestra (USA) and Mozart’s C moll messe at the Kreuzkirche, Dresden. In 2018, Carine made her debut at the Händel Festspiele in Halle under the direction of Attilio Cremonesi and the Camerata Bern. She also performed a new opera “Are these waves” from Scottish composer Jane Dickson at La Monnaie, Belgium.

WEBSITE

DANIEL MOODY
countertenor

Countertenor Daniel Moody has garnered widespread acclaim for his “sweet and melancholy sound” (The Washington Post) and his ability to “pierce hearts” and “utterly silence a room” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). Cited for a “vocal resonance, [that] makes a profoundly startling impression” (The New York Times) and for his “vivid and powerful” voice (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), Mr. Moody is equally celebrated for his interpretations of contemporary and baroque works.

Moody’s opera appearances have included the title roles in Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo, Arsamene in Xerxes, Lichas in Hercules, Didymus in Theodora, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, L’Enfant in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges, and as the “eerie yet forceful” (Broadway World) leading role of Man #1 in the world premiere of Desire by composer Hannah Lash. Moody recently appeared as Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at Cincinnati Opera. American Record Guide raved about “how versatile (Moody) and his voice have become,” and spoke of “numerous moments of utter beauty…where he would start singing ever so sweetly and then just let his voice blossom out into something big and round and smooth.”

Moody’s upcoming performances include debuts with Opera Lafayette (Venus and Adonis) and Minnesota Orchestra (Messiah), a tour of St. Matthew Passion with Apollo’s Fire, Handel’s Orlando at Staunton Festival and the premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Cosmic Cowboy, to be performed in the fall of 2020 with White Snake Projects.

“Moody delivered a combination of tenderness and theatrical verve” (San Francisco Chronicle) in his recent duet concert with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (Nicholas McGegan), and his performance of the title role in Handel’s Rinaldo led the San Diego Story to declare, “Moody’s voice grows stronger and brighter as it ascends. He may help create a new operatic vocal category: Helden Countertenor.” Daniel has also performed roles in Mark Morris’ productions of Britten’s Curlew River and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at BAM (Howard Gilman Opera House) and at the Tanglewood Music Festival where the Financial Times noted his “inspired and absorbing performances.”

Moody recently made his Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium debut with Oratorio Society of New York and also with Musica Sacra (Kent Tritle), and has performed as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony (Thomas Søndergård conducting), Les Violons du Roy in Québec City, (Bernard Labadie), Apollo’s Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra (Jeannette Sorrell), the Portland Baroque Orchestra (David Hill), and symphonies of Illinois, Charleston (Ken Lam), and Winston-Salem (Robert Moody). He gave the American premiere of George Benjamin’s intricate Dream of the Song (Stefan Asbury) at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood Festival. He has also appeared with numerous early music groups including Boston, Indianapolis and Washington Early Music Festivals, renowned group Acronym at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Mountainside Baroque (Maryland) and La Fiocco (Pennsylvania).

WEBSITE

TYLER DUNCAN
baritone

Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan recently performed at the Metropolitan Opera as Prince Yamadori in Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. At the Spoleto Festival he debuted as Mr. Friendly in the 18th-century ballad opera Flora/em>, returning the next season as the Speaker in Mozart’s The Magic Flute/em>. Other appearances have included the role of the Journalist in Berg’s Lulu/em> and Fiorello in Rossini’s Barber of Seville/em>, both at the Metropolitan Opera, Raymondo in Handel’s Almira/em> with the Boston Early Music Festival, Dandini in Rossini’s La cenerentola/em> with Pacific Opera Victoria; and Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream/em> at the Princeton Festival. Issued on the CPO label is his Boston Early Music Festival recording of the title role in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis/em>.

WEBSITE