Beethoven’s Ninth

Baltimore Choral Arts Society

Baltimore Choral Arts Society builds a stronger, more connected, more inspired community by celebrating the joy of choral music through exceptional performances and diverse educational and artistic partnerships.

Baltimore Choral Arts Society, now in its 58th season, is one of Maryland’s premier cultural institutions. The Symphonic Chorus, Chorus, and Chamber Singers perform throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Washington, D.C., New York, and in Europe. Music Director Anthony Blake Clark has established new, large-scale collaborative performances with Maryland Institute College of Art, Maryland State Boychoir, and Peabody Youth Orchestra. In October 2022, Choral Arts went on its second European tour under the direction of Maestro Clark, with performances in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague, and concluded with a prestigious invitation to perform with the Vienna Radio Orchestra under the baton of Marin Alsop.

Baltimore Choral Arts provides several thoughtful and impactful music education programs that serve youth in and around Baltimore. These programs include CoroLAB, a partnership with Overlea High School and Baltimore City College’s choral music programs; Vocal Fellows, an expanded professional development program for early-career singers; Student Composer Project, a competition for high-school and college composers; and Christmas for Kids. Through these educational programs, Choral Arts serves the very young to early-career adult musicians.

For the previous 25 years, WMAR Television, the ABC network affiliate in Maryland, featured Choral Arts in an hour-long special, Christmas with Choral Arts, which won an Emmy Award in 2006. In 2022, Christmas with Choral Arts was broadcast on Maryland Public Television, bringing the performance to new audiences. In 2022, Choral Arts collaborated with composer Jasmine Barnes to present Mozart’s Requiem Reframed, which was recorded by Maryland Public Television for the Emmy® Award-winning episode, Artworks: Dreamer. The ensemble has been featured frequently on The First Art (Public Radio International), Performance Today (National Public Radio) and VOX (XM Radio). In Europe, Choral Arts was featured in a program devoted to the music of Handel broadcast on Radio Suisse Romande.

In 2010, under the direction of then-Music Director Tom Hall, Choral Arts released Christmas at America’s First Cathedral on Gothic Records, recorded at the Baltimore Basilica, which includes familiar Christmas favorites as well as premieres by Rosephanye Dunn Powell and James Lee, III. A recording with Dave Brubeck, featuring Brubeck’s oratorio, The Gates of Justice, was released internationally on the NAXOS label in 2004; Choral Arts is also featured on Introducing the World of American Jewish Music on Naxos. Choral Arts has two other recordings in current release: Christmas with Choral Arts and a live recording of the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil and will soon celebrate the release of their newest album, Dreamer, on Acis Records, featuring Maestro Clark’s new edition of Mozart’s Requiem and Portraits: Douglass and Tubman by Jasmine Barnes. Recent awards and recognitions include the 2020 Chorus America/ASCAP Alice Parker Award, the 2020 American Prize in Community Chorus Conducting (Anthony Blake Clark), and the 2020 Emmy Award nomination for the 2019 Christmas with Choral Arts broadcast.

Cedric Berry

CEDRIC BERRY, bass-baritone, received his music diploma from Interlochen Arts Academy, and both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California. He gained his first professional experience as a Resident Artist with Los Angeles Opera, performing the roles of Fiorello in The Barber of Seville, Schaunard in La Boheme, Second Philistine in Samson et Dalila, Wagner in Faust, Crébillon in La Rondine, and First Mate in Billy Budd.  Other roles include the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Collatinus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Falstaff in Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor, and Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte all with USC Opera, Méphistophélès in Gounod’s Faust with Pacific Repertory Opera, Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with UCLA Opera, Dewaine in John Adams’ I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky with Long Beach Opera, and The Good Man in Anne LeBaron’s Crescent City with The Industry.  Cedric made his first European stage appearances as Jake in a concert version of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in Madrid, and Cuenca, Spain.  He also appeared with Los Angeles Opera at the Savonlinna Opera Festival singing the role of First Nazarene in Salome, and sang a concert in tribute to Paul Robeson for the Banlieues Bleues festival in Paris, France.

On the concert stage he has appeared with Bakersfield Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic and Santa Fe Symphony in Handel’s Messiah, Pacific Symphony in Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor, Arizona Symphony as Balthazar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, the Telemann Chamber Orchestra in a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Tokyo, Japan and of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Osaka, Japan, the Luckman Jazz Orchestra singing Duke Ellington’s Scared Songs, the New West Symphony as Zuniga in Carmen, the Southwest Chamber Orchestra in Wuorinen’s The Haroun Songbook, the Pasadena Pops Orchestra in Jerome Kern’s Showboat Symphonic Suite, the California Philharmonic in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Concert Suite, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Michael Torke’s Book of Proverbs.  He has been the recipient of several awards including first place in LA’s Artist of the Future Competition, the Italian Educator’s Vocal Competition, and the Metropolitan Opera Western Region Competition.  Recent Los Angeles engagements include the lead role of Kublai Khan in Invisible Cities, an opera which was a 2014 Pulitzer Prize Finalist.  The production was listed as “Best of 2013” by the Los Angeles Times. The documentary of the production received and Emmy Award, and a CD was recorded and released in Nov. 2014.

Kelebogile Besong

The young South-African spinto-soprano Kelebogile Besong is emerging on the international opera and concert stages as a talent of unusually strong stage presence, sensitive musicianship and vocal power. After making her North American debut as Aida with the Pacific Symphony, critics proclaimed, “At the youthful age of 28, Besong’s vocal abilities are nothing short of phenomenal. Her Aida is truly visceral… The dramatic soprano turns on a dime, capable of radiating over and above tutti orchestra, yet poised for a quixotic shift of pianissimo phrasing that melts like butter.”(Concerto.net) The soprano returns this season to the Pacific Symphony for her role debut as Desdemona in Otello, she also joins Opera Saratoga in her role debut as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly. Last season, she returned to the role of Aida at Theater Dortmund, and sang Bess in the Porgy and Bess Suite in a return to Malmö Opera. Ms. Besong also recently sang Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan, joined the Edinburgh International Festival for Musetta in La bohème, and sang Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

Richard Troxell

Richard Troxell’s beautiful lyric tenor voice has been thrilling audiences in leading roles in opera houses and on concert stages around the world for over 25 years. Richard’s career has ranged from the starring role of Pinkerton in Martin Scorcese’s Sony Film of “Madama Butterfly” to being a recurring guest on Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night, to climbing out of the sewers of Seville as Don Jose at the Sydney Opera House in Carmen, to singing the National Anthem for MLB’s ALCS to sharing the stage with Opera star’s  Denyce Graves  and Roberto Alagana to  costarring on Broadway with the beloved Broadway soprano, Melissa Errico, to singing  the role of the dwarf in Zemlinksy’s “Der Zwerg” at Avery Fisher Hall to directing “Eugene Onegin” at the Academy of Vocal Arts.

An extremely versatile singer, Richard runs the gamut of musical genres from his recordings of Jazz, Broadway and Opera to performing at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera.  He has worked with Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Placido Domingo, James Conlon, Lorin Maazel, , Georges Pretre, Bertrand de Billy, Emmanuel Villaume, Michel Plasson, Joel Levy, Erich Kunzel, Keith Roberts, , Jeff Tyzik, Anton Coppola, Steven Mercurio, Quest Love and the Roots and the list goes on….

Mr. Troxell’s star turn as Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton in the award winning Sony film Madame Butterfly, presented by Martin Scorcese, received high praise following its premiere in Paris and the U.S. in 1996. Film critics Siskel and Ebert gave him “two thumbs up” and said of Richard’s performance ”His voice is splendid and his manner assured.” The New York Times deemed his performance “the most dramatically satisfying vocal characterization” in the film. His Pinkerton is one of the most viewed performances of this role.

Richard’s continued success in film is evidenced in two other DVDs. First on the EMI label, Marta Domingo’s production of La Rondine from the Washington Opera which was later broadcast on the PBS series Great Performances and secondly with Deutsche Grammophon label Franco Alfano’s opera Cyrano de Bergerac in which he portrays the handsome officer Christian opposite the Cyrano of Roberto Alagna.

In 2015-16 Richard made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Michael Mayer’s production of Rigoletto followed just 5 months later by his Broadway Debut in the New York City Center’s Tony Award “Encores” Series in Rodgers’ and Sondheim’s Do I Hear a Waltz alongside Broadway Star, Melissa Errico.  His performance of Pablo Neruda in Daniel Catan’s  Il Postino with Opera Saratoga  was his debut into the world of Spanish Opera.

Equally at home on the concert stage, Mr. Troxell has been seen with the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Saint Louis Symphony in his signature role as Tenor Soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana. Other concert engagements of note include Handel’s Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Mahler’s Die Lied von der Erde with the Detroit Symphony,  and Mendelsshon’s Walpurgisnacht with the Denver Symphony.  At Avery Fisher Hall, Mr. Troxell performed the Title Role in Zemlinsky’s opera Der Zwerg under the baton of Leon Botstein with the American Symphony Orchestra. Opera News called his interpretation” the afternoon’s most successful performance.”

Starting out as an actor in musical theater at the beginning of his career, Richard loves returning home to the Broadway and Pops standards. He has been a favorite with the Boston Pops, the Cincinnati Pops with Erich Kunzel, the Naples Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, and the Erie Pops singing the hits of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Lerner and Lowe, Rogers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and many more.

Richard Troxell’s talents as an actor and singer are evidenced in the wide variety of roles he has sung ranging from a punk-rocker in a contemporary staging of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (photo) for the Spoleto Festival USA , to the wide-eyed innocence of Candide  for Portland Opera (photo) ,to the maniacal Don José in Carmen (photo), to the love-struck Roméo in Roméo et Juliette at Teatro de la Maestranza (photo).

Away from the stage, Richard appeared with Garrison Kellior on his show A Prairie Home Companion when he was in Minnesota appearing at the opera. And baseball fans have not been denied the opportunity to hear Richard for 15 years in a row as he sang The Star Spangled Banner at the Opening Day ceremonies in Camden Yards for his beloved Baltimore Orioles.

Mr. Troxell’s recording credits include, his latest 2 solo Cd’s  So in Love with the Tom Lawton Trio, Classic Broadway with the Czech National Symphony under the baton of maestro Steven Mercurio,  the role of Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly for the Sony label, the role of Beppe in I Pagliacci  for the Deutsche Gramophone label under the baton of Georges Prêtre, the role of Christian in Cyrano de Bergerac for the Deutsche Gramophone label, the role of Galieo in Philip Glass” Galileo Galilea for the Orange Mt. label, and numerous recordings for the Milken Archive of Jewish Music on the Naxos Label, including Masada by Marvin David Levy with the Berlin Radio Symphony and his first sold out solo CD Wonderful World.

Richard Troxell is from Thurmont, Maryland where he started singing at the age of four along with his parents, belting out Broadway tunes at Lions Club benefits and singing hymns in the church choir. He received his operatic training at the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) in Philadelphia, PA. He currently resides in the countryside of Chester County, PA with his wife dancer/choreographer Lisa Lovelace and their two sons Wilder and Shane. When not performing, he enjoys spending time with his family, cooking, motorcycling, hiking , and long-distance bicycle riding.

Erin Wagner

American mezzo-soprano Erin Wagner is a passionate advocate for vocal music that embraces modern and diverse perspectives. She won the 2021 Naumburg Foundation Vocal Award, making her Carnegie Hall recital debut with the program “But how things change,” which featured works by Edie Hill, Fauré, Ravel, Errollyn Wallen, Shawn Chang, and Mahler. Erin also commissioned Errollyn Wallen to compose the song cycle JOY, which premiered in 2023.

Erin Wagner is the first prize winner of the The Gerda Lissner Foundation’s 2024 Lieder / Song Vocal Competition and an alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Erin debuted as Jack in Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers and performed in Le Nozze di Figaro (Barbarina) and Salome (Page). She was named a First Prize Winner of the 2022 YCA Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, leading to debut performances at The Kaufman Center and The Kennedy Center. At the 2022 Merola Opera Program, she won the Schwabacher Recital Debut Auditions with Shawn Chang, and they later performed a recital at San Francisco Opera titled “Everything Must Change.” In 2023, Erin returned to the Aspen Music Festival as a Renée Fleming Artist, where she portrayed Idamante in Idomeneo and performed Schubert under Nicholas McGegan.

In the 2024-25 season, Erin will make her Metropolitan Opera debut in Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten. She will also present a new work by David Ludwig on the Brooklyn Arts Song Series, participate in the New York Festival of Song at Merkin Hall, and perform with the Brazos Valley Symphony and the Maryland Symphony. Erin will be featured in the YCA Encore Series at the Morgan Library and the YCA Season Finale at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Erin is dedicated to making art accessible to all. She commissioned Shawn Chang to compose “Marty’s Letter”, based on her father’s childhood, and collaborated with David Clay Mettens on The Sustaining Air, set to text by Larry Eigner. Erin holds a Master’s Degree from The Juilliard School, where she won the Juilliard Vocal Arts Honors Recital, and a Bachelor’s Degree from The Manhattan School of Music. She currently studies with Dr. Stephen King.

Young Concert Artists (YCA) represents mezzo-soprano Erin Wagner for worldwide engagements.