About this Artist
Lyric tenor ALAN BENNETT has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and in Central and South America and Asia, singing with prominent festivals and orchestras, as well as in recitals and opera. His performances have received consistently high critical acclaim and his singing has been described by the Boston Globe as “free-voiced” and having a “sweet sound, with endless legato and dead-center intonation.” The Chorus! Journal writes that “Mr. Bennett’s Evangelist recitatives rank among some of the most coherent, persuasive performances I have ever heard, and his sparkling performance of the arias make him an absolutely ideal Bach tenor.”
He has presented performances at such venues throughout the world as Carnegie Hall (the main theater, Weill Recital Hall, and Zankel Hall), Wigmore Hall, the Berlin Schauspielhaus, the Kennedy Center, Kumho Arts Hall, and many others. He has sung with numerous symphony orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Honolulu Symphony, the New Mexico Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony, and others. He has also sung with many period instrument ensembles including the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Handel & Haydn Society, Tafelmusik, and Apollo’s Fire.
An active recitalist and chamber musician, he has performed with the Vermeer and Penderecki quartets and his recital partners have included the late Leonard Hokanson, with whom he performed numerous song recitals, and lutenists Nigel North and Paul O’Dette. He is currently collaborating with pianist Hye-Seon Choi in preparation for the 2010 Robert Schumann anniversary celebration, during which they will present all of the major Schumann song cycles for tenor and piano. In addition to numerous performances in the U.S. and Canada, his recital engagements have taken him to Brazil, Germany, and Korea.
He is a frequent guest at music festivals and has developed a longstanding relationship with the Carmel Bach Festival, where he has performed for many seasons. He has appeared at the Tanglewood Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Bethlehem Bach Festival, Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival, the Caramoor Festival, the Grand Tetons Music Festival, the Augsburg Mozart Festival, and many others. Choral societies with which he has sung include the Oratorio Society of New York, Washington Choral Arts Society, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, San Francisco Bach Choir, Houston Masterworks Chorus, Dartmouth Handel Society, Seattle Chamber Singers, and more. He has collaborated with some of the world’s most prominent conductors, including Bruno Weil, Sir David Willcocks, Christopher Hogwood, Helmuth Rilling, Nicholas McGegan, Bernard Labadie, and the late Robert Shaw. His recording credits include works of the medieval through contemporary periods, including premieres of works by Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt for Harmonia Mundi USA, and he has also recorded for Nonesuch, Telarc, and Focus Records. Upcoming performances for 2010 include master classes and recitals in Tokyo and Seoul, these performances of Handel’s Messiah in Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as Bach’s Passions in the Washington National Cathedral, Monteverdi’s Vespers at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and returns to the Carmel and Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festivals. Alan Bennett is a member of the voice faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.