Handel Choir's exceptional cast of guest vocal soloists for Messiah
With a voice of “extraordinary suppleness and beauty” (New York Times), soprano Teresa Wakim’s performances of opera, oratorio, and chamber music have garnered her wide acclaim. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and Boston University, she enjoys an internationally successful career performing and recording music from the renaissance to the present. The Boston Globe noted, “Teresa Wakim has a bejeweled lyric soprano, with an exquisite top register and a delicate feeling for baroque phrasing.”
Noted engagements include performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Apollo’s Fire, Charlotte Symphony, Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Tragicomedia. She has sung under the batons of Harry Christophers, Ton Koopman, Roger Norrington, and Nicholas McGegan.
A recipient of many honors Wakim won First Prize in the Internationaler Solistenwettbeweb für alte Musik in Brunnenthal, Austria and was named a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow by Emmanuel Music. She is featured on two Grammy-nominated recordings of Lully operas with the Boston Early Music Festival and has also recorded with Seraphic Fire, Blue Heron, Handel & Haydn Society, and Musik Ekklesia.
Countertenor Charles Humphries’ career has paired him with numerous highly distinguished conductors worldwide. Among others they include Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Paul McCreesh, Robert King, Rinaldo Allessandrini, Nicholas McGegan, James O’Donnell, Trevor Pinnock, and Lars Ulrik Mortensen.
Born in the United Kingdom, Humphries graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and was honored with the letters ARAM (Associate Royal Academy of Music) for his services to music. Known for his intelligent interpretations of baroque and renaissance music, he has been one of the most sought after countertenors worldwide for the past twenty years. Performances have taken him to many countries including France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Croatia, Germany, Norway, and Lithuania. He has made over forty recordings as a soloist or consort singer with numerous ensembles.
In 2009 Humphries moved to the US and now resides in Washington, DC where he is in demand as a vocal coach, teacher, and mentor. The 2011-2012 season includes engagements with the Washington Bach Consort, Bach Sinfonia, Washington Cathedral Choral Society, Ensemble viii (Austin, Texas), and Baroque Band (Chicago). The following season he will appear in the Messiah performances at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (NYC).
Tenor Matthew Anderson has been praised for the warm tenor voice and polished musicality he brings to oratorio, opera, and musical theater. An accomplished interpreter of Bach, Anderson sings regularly as a soloist in Boston’s renowned Emmanuel Music Bach Cantata Series. He is a two-time prizewinner in the American Bach Society Competition and won second prize in the Oratorio Society of New York Solo Competition, in which he also won the Westenberg Award for 18th Century Stylistic Interpretation.
Recent performances from Anderson’s varied repertoire include Stravinsky’s Renard at Tanglewood and the Mostly Mozart Festival with the Mark Morris Dance Group; John Harbison’s Winter’s Tale with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Haydn’s Creation with Emmanuel Music; Bach’s Saint John Passion (Evangelist) at Princeton University and the University of Chicago; and several works by Benjamin Britten (Serenade, Saint Nicholas, and Cantata Misericordium). He will create the role of Abelard in John Austin’s new opera Heloise and Abelard at Harvard University and appear in Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall.
Anderson spent two seasons as a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and was a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow with Emmanuel Music. A native of Kansas, he resides in Boston where he studied Classics at Harvard and voice at the New England Conservatory.
Nationally acclaimed baritone Timothy LeFebvre has wide-ranging experience from the operatic stage to the concert hall. Appearances in 2010-2011 include Elijah with the Berkshire Choral Festival, Opera Arias and Copland’s Old American Songs with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Brahms’ Requiem with Syracuse Symphony, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Williamsport Symphony.
LeFebvre has appeared in concert with symphonies in Minnesota, Vermont, and West Virginia; Binghamton, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Spokane, and Williamsport; and the American Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Bach Festival, Berkshire Choral Festival, New Dominion Chorale, Syracuse Chamber Music Society, Skaneateles Festival, and Marlboro Music Festival. He has also sung in New York City at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall. His operatic experience includes leading roles with Central City Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Sarasota Opera, Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, Syracuse Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Opera Delaware, and Opera Theater of Pittsburgh.
A graduate of Carnegie Mellon and Binghamton Universities, LeFebvre is currently Associate Professor of Singing at Oberlin Conservatory. Future performances include Mozart’s Requiem with the Susquehanna Valley Chorale, Brahms’ Requiem with Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes and Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the New Dominion Chorale.
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Photo of Ms. Wakim by Teddie Hwang
