Vancouver Early Music Festival 2012

de Québec and in Toronto for an appearance as Juno in Handel’s
Semele with the Canadian Opera Company.
In March 2011, Allyson released Caldara’s La Conversione di Clodoveo,
Re di Francia (ATMA) in which she performed the title role,
having previously performed it in Berlin, Montreal and at the 2005
Vancouver Early Music Festival with Le Nouvel Opéra. She has also
recorded Bellini’s Norma (Philharmonia Narodowa) with the Warsaw
Philharmonic, two works by Harry Somers - Serinette and A Mid-
Winter Night’s Dream (Centrediscs) and is featured on the Musica
Leopolis label in Ukrainian music by composer Mykola Lysenko.
Nathan Berg bass
[Zoroastre]
d www.allysonmchardy.com
Canadian bass-baritone Nathan
Berg has had a wide ranging career
alternating from his love of song to
concert and opera in a vast range of
styles and time periods. In recital he
has appeared at the Wigmore Hall
in London, Lincoln Center in New
York and many other prestigious
venues around the world with
pianists such as Graham Johnson,
Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles and Martin Katz. Much of Mr. Berg’s
early work in concert and opera concentrated largely on the Baroque
and Classical with many collaborations with groups such as William
Christie’s Les Arts Florissants. He has since delved in Romantic and
later with recent debuts as Wagner’s Dutchman, Puccini’s Scarpia and
Bartok’s Bluebeard.
An in-demand, “first-class” (Boston Globe) and versatile bass-baritone,
he has worked with many distinguished conductors including Masur,
Salonen, Christie, Herreweghe, Tortelier, Norrington, Leppard, Rilling,
Haenchen, and Tilson Thomas with most of the world’s great orchestras
such as New York, Berlin, Cleveland and Chicago. Among his operatic
work he has appeared in roles ranging from Mozart’s Figaro, Leporello,
Don Giovanni and Guglielmo, Puccini’s Scarpia, Marcello, Coline,
Wagner’s Dutchman, Verdi’s Ferrando, Rossini’s Alidoro, Rameau’s
Huascar and numerous Handel roles in such places as Glyndebourne,
Paris National Opera, Netherlands Opera, La Monnai, New York City
Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Trieste and
Bavarian State Opera to name just a few.
A Grammy nominated and Juno Award winning artist, some
recording highlights include numerous cds with Les Arts Florissants
including Messiah and the Mozart Requiem, various song recordings
including songs by Othmar Schoeck and a Lieder Recital recording
with Julius Drake, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater with the Atlanta Symphony
and Robert Shaw, and recent DVD releases of Lully’s Armide (Théâtre
des Champs-Elysees) and Rossini’s Cenerentola (Glyndebourne).
Highlights from his 2011/2012 seasons included Scarpia (Tosca)
with Edmonton Opera, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Atlanta
Symphony, Houston Symphony and San Fransisco Symphony,
Dvorak Te Deum with Cleveland Symphony, Huascar in Les Indes
Galantes with Théâtre Capitole; Valens in Handel’s Théodora with
Le Concert Spirituel and his debut with the Seattle Symphony
in performances of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. A few hightlights
from 2012/2013 include returns to Houston Symphony, Singapore
Symphony, and Carnegie Hall.
d www.nathanberg.com
Alexander Weimann
music director
Alexander Weimann is one of the
most sought-after harpsichordists,
ensemble directors, soloists,
and chamber music partners of
his generation. He has traveled the
world as a member of the ensemble
Tragicomedia; as a frequent
guest of ensembles such as Les
Boréades, Cantus Cölln, Freiburger
Barockorchester, Tafelmusik, and
Julien Faugère photo
the Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam;
and as musical director of Les Voix Baroques and Le Nouvel Opéra. He
led the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah, conducted
the Pacific Baroque Orchestra on a tour of Canada and the USA, and
performed Bach’s Harpsichord Concertos as soloist with Les Violons
du Roy. Both the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and the Montreal
Symphony Orchestra regularly invite him to play as soloist.
After working as an assistant conductor at the Amsterdam, Basel, and
Hamburg opera houses, he began directing on his own. A cross section
of his opera’s include: Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona and Handel’s
Orlando Furioso in Munich; Telemann’s Passion oratorio Seliges
Erwägen at the Europäischen Wochen festival at Passau; Caldara’s
Clodoveo (2005) and the multipart opera event Mozart à Milano
(2006), both of which were Canadian-German co-productions
mounted at festivals in Montreal and Vancouver, and at the Sanssouci
Palace Theatre in Berlin. For the Vancouver Early Music Festival, he
has directed Handel’s Resurrection (2007), Rameau’s Pygmalion (2008),
Purcell’s The Faerie Queene (2009), Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610
(2010) and King Arthur (2011). He can be heard on over 100 CDs and,
frequently, on the radio in many countries.
Weimann was born in 1965 in Munich, where he studied the organ,
church music, musicology (his M.A. thesis was on Bach’s recitatives),
theatre, mediæval Latin, and jazz piano. To ground himself further in the
roots of western music, he became intensively involved with Gregorian
chant. In 1997, his group Le Nuove Musiche won first prize at the Premio
Bonporti music competition in Rovereto. Weimann has taught music
theory, improvisation, and jazz at the Munich Musikhochschule.
Since 1998, he has been giving master classes in harpsichord and
historical performance practice at institutions such as Lunds University
in Malmö and the Bremen Musikhochschule, and also at North
American universities such as Berkeley (University of California),
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, McGill in Montreal, and
Mount Allison in New Brunswick. For several years, he has been
teaching early music performance practice to voice and instrumental
students at the Université de Montréal, as well as conducting the
Baroque opera that is produced there once every two years.
After some years in Berlin, he now spends as much time as possible
with his family — which includes three children as well as several pets
— in his adopted home, Montreal, and is active in both his kitchen
and his garden.
Chloe Meyers
Pacific Baroque Orchestra concert mistress, violin & viola d’amore
Heralding her beginnings as a true northern Albertan, violinist
Chloe Meyers began her training at the age of three, with the full
intention of catching up to her older sister. Her training continued
www.earlymusic.bc.ca — Handel’s “Orlando” - page 11 — Vancouver Early Music Festival 2012