Cantata No. IV: For New Year's Day
Cantata No. V: For the First Sunday in the new year
Cantata No. VI: For the Feast of the Epiphany
Soloists:
Evangelist: Kyle Stegall
Soprano: Jennifer Paulino
Countertenor: Doug Dodson
Baritone: Gil Zilkha
The Redeemer Choir
Philharmonie Austin:
A 27-piece ensemble playing on period instruments
Mark Dupere, conductor
{no charge for admission}
Mark Dupere, conductor
Mark Dupere is 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 Netherlands 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.
Jennifer Paulino, soprano
San Francisco Bay Area soprano Jennifer Paulino’s voice has been praised as “graceful yet powerful” and “sensitive and clear” by San Francisco Classical Voice. Her performance in Handel’s Messiah with Seraphic Fire was praised in South Florida Classical Voice: “The sheer beauty and sincerity that soprano Jennifer Paulino brought to I know that my Redeemer liveth would be hard to equal.”
Jennifer specializes in 17th and 18th century repertoire, and appears with period ensembles and orchestras nationally. Recent performances include a concert of cantatas by Conti, Bernier, and J.S. Bach with Grammy nominated Agave baroque ensemble, and Buxtehude’s Jesu Membra Nostri, J.S Bach’s Magnificat, and Johann Kunau’s Magnificat with renowned Belgian ensemble Vox Luminis at the 2022 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition. She regularly appears with Philharmonie Austin and the Redeemer Choir, as well as Cantata Collective (CA), Bach Collegium San Diego, California Bach Society, Santa Cruz Chorale, San Francisco Choral Society, and at the Carmel Bach Festival. Jennifer has also made solo appearances at Festival Mozaic (San Luis Obispo), the Festival of Contemporary Music in San Francisco, and the Tropical Baroque Festival in Miami, FL. Internationally, Jennifer has performed at the Organs of Ballarat Festival in Australia, the International Chamber Music Festival in Olsztyn, Poland, and in Odense, Denmark for David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion.
In addition to baroque and classical period repertoire, Jennifer is also at home performing contemporary works. She is passionate about collaborating with living composers and has premiered works by Stacy Garrop, Lansing McLoskey, Jocelyn Hagen, and Preben Antonsen, among others.
Jennifer studied baroque styles with Julianne Baird, Jill Feldman, and Michael Chance, and holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Netherlands and Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ. In 2010, Jennifer won second prize in the Gerhard Herz Young Artists Competition for her interpretation of works by Bach, Mozart, and Handel, and in 2012 she was the Cal-West regional winner and a national finalist for the Artist Awards Competition for the National Association Teachers of Singing.
When Jennifer’s not performing, she’s teaching voice, caring for her young son, and composing and arranging with her husband, an indie singer-songwriter. www.jenniferpaulino.com
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.
Gil Zilkha, baritone
Gil Zilkha, baritone, enjoys an active singing career in repertoire ranging from early music to new composition, art song to opera, and covering a wide variety of cultural styles. He is equally adept at immersing himself in serious as well as comic roles. In addition to venues throughout the United States, Gil has performed concert solos in Germany, Austria, Ireland, and Wales.
Based in his native Austin, Texas, Gil has performed numerous concert and oratorio solos. Some of his favorites include the role of Jesus in the Bach Passions, Ich habe genug, and the bass solo in Mozart's Requiem. Gil made his Austin Lyric Opera debut in 2009 as Count Ceprano in Verdi's Rigoletto. With the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin, he has performed the roles of Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore and King Hildebrand in Princess Ida.
Gil has performed with such award-winning ensembles as the Oregon Bach Festival Berwick Chorus, Conspirare, and the Texas Early Music Project. He received his Masters in Voice Performance from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. His principal voice teachers were Rose Taylor and Nikita Storojev.