Solomon

Harry Bicket is internationally renowned as an opera and concert conductor of distinction. He is especially noted for his interpretation of baroque and classical repertoire and in 2007 became Artistic Director of The English Concert, one of the UK’s finest period orchestras. He became Chief Conductor of Santa Fe Opera in 2013 and from 2018 assumes the Music Directorship. Productions at Santa Fe in recent seasons have included Fidelio, La Finta Giardiniera, Romeo et Juliette, Alcina and Candide.

He studied at the Royal College of Music and Oxford University. Plans for the 2018/19 season include return visits to Metropolitan Opera (The Magic Flute), Lyric Opera of Chicago (Ariodante), Cleveland Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera (Cosi fan tutte and Strauss’ Four Last Songs with Renee Fleming), Prague Philharmonia featuring Beethoven’s The Creatures of Prometheus, and while in Chicago also conducts Music of the Baroque. Plans with The English Concert include his own arrangements of Mozart works for mechanical clockwork organ, Bach's Cantatas for Advent and Wayne Eagling’s ballet Remembrance, set to Handel’s Ode to St Cecilia’s Day, at the English National Ballet Theatre. The orchestra continues their Handel opera series with performances of Semele in Europe and the United States including Theatre de Champs Elysées, Barbican Centre and Carnegie Hall.

Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg regularly appears in major opera houses and festivals, including Teatro alla Scala Milan, Teatro la Fenice Venice, Teatro Real Madrid, Theater an der Wien, Opernhaus Zürich, Opéra National Paris, Théâtre de La Monnaie Brussels, Netherlands Opera Amsterdam, Bayerische Staatsoper München, Staatsoper Berlin, Salzburg Festival, Salzburg Whitsun Festival and Edinburgh Festival.

Her operatic repertoire includes a large number of roles in operas by Rossini, Mozart, Gluck, Handel, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Purcell, Bizet and Massenet.

She is highly sought after as a concert singer and she frequently appear in concert halls throughout Europe and North America. She has built an unusually vast concert repertoire that spans music from the early 17th Century works up to 20th-century works. Her most performed concert repertoire, next to baroque repertoire, are Berlioz’s Les nuits d'été, The Damnation of Faust and L'enfance du Christ, Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde, Brahms' Alto Rhapsody, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Symphony No. 9, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius and Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust.

She has performed with orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre national de France, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Danish Radio Orchestra. She enjoys a special close collaboration with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Europa Galante.

Ann Hallenberg has regularly works with conductors such as Fabio Biondi, Gianluca Capuano, William Christie, Teodor Currentzis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Emmanuelle Haïm, Daniel Harding, Andrea Marcon, Cornelius Meister, Marc Minkowski, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Antonio Pappano, Evelino Pidò and Christophe Rousset.

Most recent engagements include the title role in Agrippina at the Drottningholm Festival, Juditha in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans in Rome with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Handel’s Donna, che in ciel di tanta luce at the BBC Proms in London with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Dejanira in Handel’s Hercules at the Händel Festival in Karlsruhe, Marie Berlioz’s L'enfance du Christ with the Tonhalle Zürich as well as in London with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos and Scena di Berenice at London Barbican with Academy of Ancient Music, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, Lobgesang with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Ferrandini’s Il Pianto di Maria with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Upcoming highlights include the title role in Vivaldi’s Griselda at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in London, Berlin, Wroclaw and La Côte with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, arias by Mozart in Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Örebro with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the title role in Handel’s Solomon in London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Madrid with the English Concert and arias by Handel in Wigmore Hall London with the Mozartists and Ian Page.

She has recorded more than 40 CDs and DVDs. At the International Opera Awards in London in May 2016 her solo CD Agrippina won the award for “Best Operatic Recital”. This was her second win in the category, having also won in 2014.

Internationally renowned Swedish soprano Miah Persson has worked all over the world as a recitalist and concert artist, as well as on the operatic stage.

Throughout her distinguished career, she has performed Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Gretel in Hansel und Gretel and Pamina in The Magic  Flute at the Metropolitan Opera; Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni at Covent Garden; the title role in L'Incoronazione di Poppea and the Governess  in The Turn of the Screw at Teatro alla Scala; Fiordiligi, Susanna and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at the Wiener Staatsoper; Governess The Turn of the Screw, Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira and Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress at the Glyndebourne Festival; Donna Elvira at the Theatre Champs Elysees and the Liceu Barcelona; Fiordiligi at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Hamburgische Staatsoper, New National Theatre Tokyo, Bayerische Staatsoper and in Stockholm and for a Deutsche Grammophon recording at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden; Iris in Michel van der Aa's Sunken Garden for Dallas Opera;  L’Incoronazione di Poppea at Carnegie Hall; and Michel van der Aa’s Blank Out, a chamber opera for solo soprano, for Netherlands Opera with performances in Amsterdam, Rome and New York.

Highlights of the 2022/23 season include the Governess in The Turn of the Screw with Budapest Festival Orchestra in both Budapest and Vicenza, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at Opéra national de Paris, Haydn’s The Creation with Orchestre symphonique Montreal and Verdi’s Requiem with Oslo Philharmonic.

Last season, she made her house and role debut as the Countess at the Semperoper Dresden and Countess Almaviva in a new production at the Opéra national de Paris. On the concert platform, she performed Mozart’s Mass in C minor with both the LA Philharmonic and at Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin; Mahler 2 with Orchestre National de Lyon and Stockholm Swedish Radio Orchestra and Mahler 4 with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and at the BBC Proms 2022 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

In concert, she has sung Bach's Mass in B minor at Teatro La Fenice; Bach's St Matthew Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic; Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the BBC Proms; Brahms' Requiem with the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Gulbenkian Foundation and the London Philharmonic; Peer Gynt with the Vienna Symphony; Nelson Mass at the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg; The Seasons with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic; Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, London Symphony, Teatro alla Scala and the Philharmonie Luxembourg; Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with the Basque National Orchestra, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lille; Des Knabens Wunderhorn for the Gulbenkian Foundation; Mozart's Requiem with the LA Philharmonic; Theatre des Champs Elysees; Schumann's Faust Szenen with the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and Four Last Songs with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orkester Berlin, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Montreal Symphony Orchestra, The Creation at the Verbier Festival as well as recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Pierre Boulezsaal, Spivey Hall, the Schubert Club of St Paul, Cal Performances at Berkeley, Vancouver Playhouse and Carnegie Hall.

Cuban-American soprano Elena Villalón recently completed her tenure with the Houston Grand Opera Studio. Described as having “a voice with considerable warmth and mellifluous legato tone, but also weight and breadth” by Washington Classical Review, Ms. Villalón is a 2019 Grand Finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and most recently took home several prizes in the Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition, including second prize, audience prize, CS Prize, and the Wil Keune Prize. In the 2022/23 season, Ms. Villalón will join the ensemble of Oper Frankfurt, debuting as Iole in Hercules in a new production by Barrie Kosky as well as Atalanta in Xerxes. She will return to Houston Grand Opera as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, the Dallas Opera as Gretel in Hansel und Gretel, and the Queen of Sheba in Solomon for an international tour with The English Concert and Harry Bicket. She will also present a recital with the Tuesday Music Club in San Antonio, Texas.

Irish mezzo-soprano Niamh O’Sullivan, praised for her “bewitchingly beautiful, dark vibrant voice” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin under Veronica Dunne. She followed her studies by joining the Opera Studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich from 2016 to 2018.

In the 2022/23 season, Niamh returns to London to make her company debut with English National Opera as Mercédès in Carmen, also covering the title role. She returns to Irish National Opera for further performances of Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh's The First Child before making her role debut as Charlotte in Werther with the company. She also makes an eagerly-awaited return to Wexford Festival Opera for her role debut as Mirza in Félicien David’s Lalla-Rouhk. In concert, she will make her debut appearance with the English Concert and Harry Bicket for a tour of Solomon throughout the US and Europe.

Her numerous operatic engagements in Munich include Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, the Secretary in Menotti’s The Consul, Flora in La Traviata and Barena in Jenůfa. She also travelled with the company of the Bayerische Staatsoper for a concert performance of Der Rosenkavalier at Carnegie Hall, New York, conducted by Kirill Petrenko. Other operatic highlights include her 2018 Irish National Opera debut as Tisbe in La Cenerentola, appearing later with the company as Mercédès in Carmen, Alva in The First Child and in a co-production between the Royal Opera House and INO as Asteria in Bajazet. In 2022, Niamh made her debut at the Zurich Opera as Wellgunde in Andreas Homoki’s new production of Das Rheingold, later returning to the house to make her role debut as Meg Page in Falstaff opposite Sir Bryn Terfel.

In concert, Niamh has performed Elgar’s Sea Pictures at the Prinzregententheater as part of the Munich Festspiele in July 2019 and has sang both Mozart’s Requiem and Handel’s Messiah with the Müncher Hofkantorei. She also performed the main role of Cain in Scarlatti’s Oratorio Il Primo Omicidio with the Jakobsplatz Orchester conducted by Daniel Grossmann.

Tenor James Way is fast gaining international recognition for the versatility of his voice and commanding stage presence. A former Britten-Pears Young Artist, he is also a laureate of William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants "Jardin des Voix" and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Rising Stars young artist programs and was awarded an Independent Opera Voice Fellowship. He was the winner of the second prize in the 62nd Kathleen Ferrier Awards at Wigmore Hall.

Recent successes span from the concert platform to the opera stage, performing with ensembles such as BBC Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society Boston, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Fondazione Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano and L’Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and in the Baroque world with the Freiburger Barockorchester under René Jacobs, the English Concert, Les Arts Florissants and the English Concert as well as the title role in Samson with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort. He has appeared as Jupiter in Handel's Semele with the OAE, conducted by Christophe Rousset.

He has worked with conductors such as René Jacobs, Jakub Hrůša, Thibault Noally, Mark Wigglesworth, Alpesh Chauhan, Harry Bicket and Robin Ticciati. Since being selected for the inaugural Equilibrium Young Artists Programme, he has worked closely with Barbara Hannigan and has been widely praised for performances including Sellem in a worldwide tour of The Rake’s Progress.

Opera credits include the Son in Laurent Pelly's production of Les Mamelles de Tiresias at Glyndebourne Festival (winner of Best New Opera Production at the 2022 Opera Awards), productions of Dido and Aeneas and King Arthur at Staatsoper Berlin, the Holy Fool in Boris Godunov at the Royal Festival Hall, Lechmere in Owen Wingrave for Grange Park Opera, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Tempo) for Opéra national de Montpellier, the Young King in George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence at St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre and the Ballad Singer in Owen Wingrave for the Aldeburgh and Edinburgh International Festivals.

The coming year will see the release of his recording of Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie and the forthcoming recording of Stanford's Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, on Hyperion. His growing discography also includes Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense, a disk of Stanford songs recorded with Roderick Williams and Andrew West, Purcell's Fairy Queen with Gabrieli Consort, conducted by Paul McCreesh and King Arthur, which won BBC Music Magazine's Recording of the Year.

He also directs his ensemble The Assembled Company with whom he has conducted Schütz's A Christmas Story and most recently performed Handel's 9 German Arias with Rachel Podger in a new English translation by Jeremy Sams at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Current and upcoming projects include Flute in Midsummer Night's Dream at Glyndebourne Festival, Lurcanio in Ariodante with Il Pomo d’Oro conducted by George Petrou, Valcour L'Amant anonyme for Glyndebourne on Tour, and concerts including Bach St Matthew Passions with Les Talens Lyriques under Christophe Rousset and as the Evangelist with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Peter Whelan, Pulcinella with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Barbara Hannigan, and Zadok in a tour of Handel’s Solomon with the English Concert and Harry Bicket, culminating in a performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Learn more at JamesBernardWay.com.

American bass-baritone Brandon Cedel is a recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and was an ensemble member of Oper Frankfurt from 2016-2019.

Highlights in his 2022/23 season include Dan Brown in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Kevin Puts’ The Hours; the title role in Hercules at the Karlsruhe Handel Festival; the title role in Don Giovanni for the Atlanta Opera and a return to the Glyndebourne Festival as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the concert platform, he sings Levite in an international tour of Handel’s Solomon with The English Concert under Harry Bicket and Christus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Music of the Baroque under Dame Jane Glover.

Recent appearances include the title role in The Marriage of Figaro for the Glyndebourne Festival; the title role in Hercules for the Karlsruhe Handel Festival; Dan Brown in the world premiere of The Hours with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Zuniga in Carmen for the Chicago Opera Theater; Masetto in Don Giovanni for the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Leporello in Don Giovanni and Argante in Rinaldo for the Glyndebourne Festival; Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia for the Boston Lyric Opera; the title role in The Marriage of Figaro for Opera Philadelphia and the Stuttgart Staatsoper and Colline in La Bohème and Basilio in The Barber of Seville for the Canadian Opera Company.

His many roles for Oper Frankfurt include Masetto, the Speaker in The Magic Flute, Lieutenant Ratcliffe in Billy Budd, Argante in Rinaldo, Ariodate in Xerxes, Cesare Angelotti in Tosca, Brander in The Damnation of Faust and Achior in Mozart’s La Betulia Liberata.

Learn more at BrandonCedel.com.

Created by Trevor Pinnock in 1973, the orchestra appointed Harry Bicket as its Artistic Director in 2007. The English Concert’s discography includes more than 100 recordings with Trevor Pinnock for Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, and a series of critically acclaimed CDs for Harmonia Mundi with violinist Andrew Manze.

Recordings with Harry Bicket have been widely praised, including Lucy Crowe’s debut solo recital, Il caro Sassone. EMI Classics released Sound the Trumpet, a recording of Baroque music for trumpet with Alison Balsom and the English Concert directed by Trevor Pinnock. A recording featuring music by Handel with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote was released in the autumn of 2014.

The English Concert works with several distinguished guest directors, including violinist Fabio Biondi and harpsichordist Laurence Cummings. Learn more at EnglishConcert.co.uk.

One of the country’s leading professional vocal ensembles, The Clarion Choir has performed on some of the great stages of North America and Europe. This season they will perform twice at Carnegie Hall, and make their debut at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, Cal Performances in Berkeley, and LA Opera with The English Concert and Harry Bicket. Their recent recording of Kastalsky's Requiem reached #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Charts, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Choral Performance.

The Clarion Choir made their Lincoln Center debut in 2011, performing Bach chorales as part of the White Light Festival with organist Paul Jacobs. In 2014, the choir gave the New York premiere of Passion Week by Maximilian Steinberg, and, in October of 2016, premiered the work in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and London. Their performance was featured on PBS, and their recording of it, the Choir's debut recording, received a Grammy nomination, as well as a nomination for BBC Music Magazine's Choral Award. The Choir's second recording, the world premiere recording of Alexander Kastalsky's Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes, also was nominated for a Grammy for Best Choral Performance and was "Editor's Choice" in Gramophone.

The Clarion Choir has performed regularly in recent years as part of the MetLiveArts series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; including performances of large-scale Renaissance works by Victoria, Palestrina, Tavener and Guerrero in the Medieval Sculpture Hall and the Met Cloisters. The Choir, and artistic director Steven Fox, have collaborated in recent years with renowned artists such as Harry Bicket and The English Concert at Carnegie Hall, Eric Jacobsen and The Knights, Susan Graham, Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Madonna at the 2018 Met Gala. 

Learn more at ClarionSociety.org.

Steven Fox is artistic director of the Clarion Choir and the Clarion Orchestra in New York, and music director of Cathedral Choral Society at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The 2022/23 season sees his conducting debuts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Ballet. In previous seasons, he has conducted the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Opéra de Québec, Chicago's Music of the Baroque, San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, Juilliard415, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Portland's Cappella Romana, and Toronto's Theatre of Early Music. His performances have taken him to some of the most prestigious halls internationally, such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and David H. Koch Theatre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, London's Barbican Centre and Duke's Hall, St. Petersburg's Grand Philharmonic Hall and Hermitage Theater, Moscow's Rachmaninoff Hall, Paris's Theatre des Champs Elysée, and the Vatican.

Steven was named an associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, in 2010 "for significant contributions to his field in music," and has received Grammy nominations for his first three recordings: Steinberg's Passion Week (2016), Kastalsky's Memory Eternal (2018), and Kastalsky's Requiem (2020). 

Steven Fox was chorus master for the Grammy Award-winning recording of Ethel Smyth's The Prison, featuring the Experiential Orchestra and Chorus conducted by James Blachly. In recent years, he has collaborated with artists and ensembles such as Harry Bicket and The English Concert, Susan Graham, Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Eric Jacobsen and The Knights Chamber Orchestra, and Madonna at the 2018 Met Gala. 

Steven has a distinguished background in liturgical music, having served as Acting Director of Music for the renowned music program of Trinity Church, Wall Street in 2009-2010, and, since 2004, as Cantorial Soloist for the High Holy Days at the majestic Temple Emanu-El in New York City.

Steven graduated as a senior fellow with high honors in music and Russian from Dartmouth College, and with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music. Steven founded Musica Antiqua St. Petersburg as Russia’s first period-instrument orchestra at the age of 21, and premiered several important Russian 18th-century symphonic and operatic works with the orchestra. From 2008 to 2013 he was an associate conductor at New York City Opera, and, in 2011, served as assistant conductor for the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artists Program and Juilliard Opera. He has given master classes and clinics at the Royal Academy of Music, Dartmouth College, the Juilliard School, and Yale University, where he served for two years as preparatory conductor of the Yale Schola Cantorum.