If you’re planning on attending the St. John Passion on Friday or Saturday night, please be aware that construction and road work has complicated access to Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Allow more time to get to the church and to find parking.
You can reach Redeemer from Manor Road by heading south on Alexander Avenue.
You can also reach Redeemer by coming from the west on 22nd Street. Note there may be a sign at 22nd Street and Curtis indicating the street is closed, but you can ignore it.
There is no access to the church from Martin Luther King Boulevard, as Alexander Avenue heading north is closed.
Given that conditions around the church change frequently, you might check back here before you head out.
Thank you for your understanding and flexibility. We look forward to seeing you this weekend!
Soloists
Chorus (ensemble viii and members of the Redeemer Choir)
Philharmonie Austin
25-member ensemble playing period instruments
Mark Dupere, conductor
{no charge for admission}
Mark Dupere, conductor
Associate Professor of Music at Lawrence University, where he is the Director of Orchestral Studies. He is a passionate educator and hopes to impart a love of music-making and active engagement with audiences in the performance of music from all periods. He currently conducts the Lawrence Symphony and Chamber Orchestras as well the Fox Valley Youth Orchestra. As a cellist, Mark performed throughout Europe with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Haagsche Hofmuzieck, Anima Eterna Brugge and was an apprentice with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London. Mark was a “New Young Artist” at the Victoria Bach Festival, performed in the Leipzig Bach Competition, and most recently named a national finalist in the American Prize in Conducting. Mark holds degrees in Cello from the University of Texas at Austin, Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, The Net herlands and a Doctorate in Orchestral Conducting at Michigan State University.
Kyle Stegall, tenor (Evangelist)
Kyle Stegall’s performances around the world have been met with accolade for his “blemish-free production” (Sydney Morning Herald), “lovely tone and ardent expression” (NY Times), as well as his “lively and empathetic delivery” (San Francisco Classical Voice). An artist who communicates equally well on concert, opera, and recital stages, his performances are characterized by an unfailing attention to style and detail, and a penetrating directness of communication.
Mr. Stegall’s successful solo debuts in Japan, Australia, Vienna, Italy, Singapore, and Canada as well as on major stages across America have been in collaboration with many of the world’s most celebrated artistic directors including Manfred Honeck, Joseph Flummerfelt, William Christie, Stephen Stubbs, and Nicholas McGegan, among others.
Heard frequently as evangelist and tenor soloist in the passions and cantatas of J.S. Bach, Mr. Stegall made his Lincoln Center debut as the evangelist in the St. John Passion under the direction of The Bach Collegium Japan’s artistic director, Masaaki Suzuki. In demand as a symphonic soloist, Mr. Stegall’s seasons often include the oratorios of Handel and Haydn, the great masses of Mozart and Beethoven, and works from the Bel Canto and 20th century concert canon.
Holding a special relationship with the music of Benjamin Britten, Mr. Stegall was twice invited to participate as a fellow at the Aldeburgh Music Festival, in the composer’s hometown of Suffolk, England. There, he performed in recital and studied Britten song and Schubert lieder under the guidance of Ian Bostridge and Malcolm Martineau. Kyle has been heard in recital singing all of the composer’s cycles for tenor, including Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings.
A dedicated proponent of the song recital, Mr. Stegall personally curates recitals each season which reveal the vast colors and emotional range the collected repertoire has to offer. Recent recitals have included the complete sacred works for tenor and piano by Britten (presented by the Yale Center for British Art), English and French song in the 20th century, and Schumann and his contemporaries with fortepianist Eric Zivian at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival.
Praised for possessing an “ability to absorb viewers into the action, something which is rarely achieved in opera,” (SF Classical Voice), Mr. Stegall's stage skills have made him a popular choice for the leading lyric tenor roles in the works of Mozart as well as in operas of the Bel Canto era.
Mr. Stegall is a proud alumnus of the universities of Missouri, Michigan, and Yale.
Dimitri German, baritone (Jesus)
Dimitri German is a bass-baritone from Chicago and a graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. A frequent soloist and member of the Grammy Award-winning ensemble, The Crossing, he is a featured soloist on four of their eight Grammy-nominated recordings. A frequent concert soloist, Dimitri has recently appeared with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Waukegan Symphony Orchestra, and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. Dimitri regularly sings with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and has performed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Grant Park Symphony Chorus, Chicago Opera Theater, Music of the Baroque, William Ferris Chorale, and Constellation Men’s Ensemble.
John Buffett, bass, (Pilate)
Baritone John Buffett enjoys a versatile career lending his “warm tone and ringing top notes” (Salt Lake Tribune) to music from the early baroque through 20th and 21st century. Recent solo engagements include Bach’s “St. John Passion” with the Oregon and Charlotte Bach festivals, Copland’s “Old American Songs” with the Pacific Symphony, and Handel’s Messiah with Seraphic Fire.
Buffett has been a featured soloist with the Pacific Symphony, the Utah, San Antonio, Winston-Salem, and Syracuse Symphonies, The Mark Morris Dance Group, The Pacific Chorale, and the Rochester Philharmonic. He has also been a featured performer with many leading Early Music Ensembles including: Apollo’s Fire, Ars Lyrica, Bach Collegium San Diego, The Boston Early Music Festival, Con Gioia, The Charlotte Bach Academy, The Oregon Bach Festival, and Tesserae Baroque. In the Opera house, Buffett has performed numerous roles with Utah Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera Memphis, Utah Festival Opera, San Diego Baroque, and The Ohio Light Opera. Also an accomplished Chamber musician, he regularly performs with some of America’s best choral ensembles like Seraphic Fire, The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
Solo appearances at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center highlight other important performances. Buffett, currently on voice faculty at CSU Long Beach’s Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, and for the Professional Choral Institute at the Aspen Music Festival, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music.
Jolle Greenleaf, soprano
Soprano Jolle Greenleaf is one of today’s foremost figures in the field of early music. Balancing a career as a leading soloist and an innovative impressaria, she is in great demand as a guest artist and instructor, and she serves as artistic director of the New York City-based early music ensemble TENET Vocal Artists.
Originally from California, Ms. Greenleaf attended the University of California at Santa Barbara before moving to New York City and completing a Masters in Music at Mannes College of Music. She lived abroad in Amsterdam and studied at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, the Netherlands before returning to New York City to launch a career devoted to solo and small ensemble singing.
Ms. Greenleaf has been hailed by The New York Times as a “golden soprano” and “a major force in the New York early music-scene.” She is a celebrated interpreter of the music of Bach, Buxtehude, Handel, Purcell and, most notably, Claudio Monteverdi. Her “crisp, sensuous voice” (The New Yorker) has been praised for its “purity and beguiling naturalness” (The Oregonian) and “intriguing beauty” (The Boston Globe) .
“A treasured staple in New York,” Ms. Greenleaf was named the artistic director of TENET Vocal Artists in 2009, where she sings and directs the ensemble in repertoire spanning the Middle Ages to the present day. Her flair for imaginative programming has been lauded by The New York Times as “adventurous and expressive,” as well as “smart, varied and not entirely early.” She spearheaded TENET’s Green Mountain Project, whose annual performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 from 2010-2020 were universally acclaimed. She appears with TENET Vocal Artists at distinguished New York City venues including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York’s Society for Ethical Culture, Columbia University’s Italian Academy, and St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue.
Ms. Greenleaf has performed as a soloist in venues throughout the U.S., Scandinavia, Europe, and Central America for important presenters including Vancouver Early Music Festival, Denmark’s Vendsyssel Festival, Costa Rica International Music Festival, Puerto Rico’s Festival Casals, Utrecht Festival, at Panama’s National Theater, and San Cristobal, the Cathedral in Havana, Cuba.
Doug Dodson, countertenor
Possessing a “beautiful, ringing, and agile countertenor” (Boston Classical Review), Doug Dodson brings sensitive musicality and strong dramatic instincts to repertoire ranging from the baroque to the contemporary. Praised as a “vivid countertenor” by the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Dodson’s current and upcoming seasons feature a wide variety of exciting engagements throughout the United States.
In the 2018-2019 season, Mr. Dodson appeared as an alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah with New York City’s TENET Vocal Artists, in a unique unconducted performance featuring just twelve singers and the collaborative instrumental ensemble The Sebastians. He also joined TENET as an alto soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and appeared as the alto soloist in Messiah with the Handel Society of Dartmouth College. Additionally, Mr. Dodson created the role of Arion in the American premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Arion and the Dolphin with the Harvard Summer Chorus, and sang the countertenor solo in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra of Newburgh, NY.
In 2017-2018, Mr. Dodson made his mainstage solo debut with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society in Cantata 147 (“Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben”) as well as his solo debut with Boston Baroque as Nireno in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. He appeared as the Spirit in Dido and Aeneas with Pegasus Early Music (Rochester, NY), Cupid in Venus and Adonis with the Oregon Bach Festival, Speranza in L’Orfeo with Pacific MusicWorks (Seattle, WA), the alto soloist in Bach’s St. John Passion with the Oregon Bach Festival, the countertenor soloist in Hail, Bright Cecilia with the Henry Purcell Society of Boston, and the Soprano III soloist in the modern premiere of the surviving movements of Alessandro Melani’s Oratorio on the Life of St. Theodora with Reed College Collegium as part of their fringe festival performance in conjunction with the Boston Early Music Festival,
During that season Mr. Dodson also joined Guerilla Opera in the role of Perforated in Nicholas Vines’ new opera Loose, Wet, Perforated, a role which he recorded for commercial release on Navona Records. Reviewing the world premiere recording, Opera News praised him as a “sleazy Perforated, inserting sappy pop-inspired scoops into his angular vocal line and breaking out in manic, cackling repetitions of a single pitch.” Gwen Bennett of Music Trust E-Zine commended him for “deliver[ing] his role with crystalline clarity and, at times, a certain amount of irony.”
In the 2016-2017 season, Mr. Dodson performed the Voice of the Angel in composer James Kallembach’s The Most Sacred Body, a new oratorio commissioned by Music at Marsh Chapel, which he subsequently sang on the piece’s world-premiere recording released on Gothic Records. Other solo debuts included alto soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Master Chorale of South Florida, Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Newburyport Choral Society, and Handel’s Messiah with the South Dakota Symphony.
Notable past engagements include the role of The United Way in the American premiere of Tod Machover’s highly anticipated new opera Death and the Powers, an innovative collaboration between the MIT Media Lab and The American Repertory Theatre performed at the A.R.T. and Chicago Opera Theatre, under the baton of Gil Rose. Mr. Dodson created the role of Ignis in the world premiere of Per Bloland’s opera Pedr Solis with Guerilla Opera. Mr. Dodson also created the role of Farinelli the Rooster in Guerilla Opera’s world premiere production of Ken Ueno’s 2014 opera Gallo with Guerilla. The Boston Globe called his aria “show-stopping” and Lloyd Schwartz (for New York Arts) praised his “impressive and uninhibited” countertenor. An accomplished Handelian, Mr. Dodson performed the alto solos in Messiah with Music at Marsh Chapel, Kansas City Baroque Consortium, and Handel Choir of Baltimore, and also appeared as Athamas in Semele with the Handel Choir of Baltimore. He has also performed the alto solos in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Spire Chamber Ensemble (Kansas City), the role of Isaac in Britten’s Canticle II -- Abraham and Isaac with Music at Marsh Chapel, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Lowell House Opera (Harvard University), and many others.
Mr. Dodson is a dedicated ensemble singer and appears regularly with several esteemed choral ensembles throughout the country, including the prestigious Handel & Haydn Society, Seraphic Fire, Skylark, and the South Dakota Chorale.
His discography includes the Voice of the Angel on the world premiere recording of James Kallembach’s The Most Sacred Body, as Perforated on the world premiere recording of Nicholas Vines’ Loose, Wet, Perforated, and as a soloist in works by Charpentier and Sances on Viva Italia released on MSR Classics.
Mr. Dodson has degrees from University of South Dakota (Vermillion) and the University of Missouri - Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, and was a proud member of the prestigious Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme in conjunction with Aldeburgh Music in Aldeburgh, UK. He also appears as a regular panelist on the critically acclaimed opera podcast OperaNow! and made his television debut this year as a contestant on season 35 of Jeopardy!, where he was a three-day champion.
Steven Brennfleck, tenor
Praised by the New York Times as a “stand out” performer, tenor Steven Brennfleck has been consistently acknowledged for his consummate artistry, vocal flexibility, and moving interpretations on the operatic and concert stage. He has received recognition from Classical Singer Magazine’s AudComps, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions | District Winner ‘06, ‘09, & ’10, and the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition. His operatic credits include performances with American Opera Projects, Glimmerglass Opera, OrpheusPDX, Portland Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, The Tanglewood Festival and others in roles such as Roderick Usher in Philip Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher, Don Ramiro | Cenerentola, Tamino | Die Zauberflöte, Laurie in Adamo’s Little Women, Madwoman in Britten’s Curlew River, Gonsalve in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnol,
Henrik | A Little Night Music, and Tobias Ragg | Sweeney Todd.
On the concert stage, Mr. Brennfleck has been hailed for his “Outstanding presence and clear,
lyric voice” (Texas Classical Review) and “elegant” musicianship (The Baltimore Sun). He is a passionate interpreter of early music and regularly appears with some of the country’s top Baroque musical organizations in works by Bach, Handel, Monteverdi, the French hautre-contre repertory among others. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012 and finds himself equally at home with
art song as well as new and contemporary works. Mr. Brennfleck is a featured artist on recordings of Philip Glass’ Orphée with the Portland Opera and Charles Wuorinen’s cantata
It Happens Like This among others. He has collaborated with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Ars Lyrica Houston, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Bach Ensemble, LA International New Music Festival, Philadelphia’s Lyric Fest, the MET Chamber Ensemble and the Victoria Bach Festival. In addition to his performance schedule, Mr. Brennfleck is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, presenting masterclasses for musicians throughout the United States and abroad.