The Forge

KURT OLLMANN, BARITONE

“a lyric baritone voice of unusual beauty and cultivation” – The New York Times

It is a delight to welcome to The Forge Kurt Ollmann, whose worldwide career embraces song recital, opera and orchestral concerts.  A distinguished orchestral soloist, he has sung with orchestras including the LSO, L’Orchestre de Paris, Rome’s Accademia de Santa Cecilia, the NYPO and other major American orchestras. In song recitals he has been heard at the Wigmore Hall and in Paris, Milan, Geneva, Stuttgart, Barcelona, and all over North America. He first came to prominence singing Riff on the Deutsche Grammophon recording of West Side Story under Leonard Bernstein; he can also be heard in recordings of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with Placido Domingo, Gershwin’s Oh, Kay! With Dawn Upshaw, Bernstein’s Candide and West Side Story, and Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole under Previn.

Mr Ollmann’s other operatic repertoire ranges from Pelléas (at La Scala under Abbado) and Don Giovanni (in the original Peters Sellars production at Pepsico Summerfare) to Papageno, Harlekin (Ariadne auf Naxos), Valentin (Faust) and Orin Mannon (Mourning Becomes Electra).  Recent oratorio engagements have included the Fauré, Brahms and Duruflé Requiems, Britten’s War Requiem, the title role in Elijah, and the role of Jesus in both the St. Matthew Passion of Bach and the St. Luke Passion of Penderecki.

A champion of new American music, Kurt Ollmann has collaborated with composers including Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, Michael Torke, Richard Danielpour, Peter Lieberson, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Musto and William Bolcom, and was one of the original performers of THE AIDS QUILT SONGBOOK.

ROY HOWAT, PIANO

Born in Scotland, Roy Howat is internationally known as both scholar and pianist.  His specialisation in French music was fed by studies with Vlado Perlemuter (who worked closely with Fauré and Ravel) and Jacques Février (who worked closely with Ravel and Poulenc).  Roy knows much of his concert repertoire from the composers’ manuscripts, and is one of the co-founding editors of the Paris-based New Complete Debussy Edition, as well as editor of a Dover urtext volume of Chabrier’s piano music and a highly acclaimed series of Fauré urtexts for Peters Edition.  In the 1980s Roy’s discoveries about Debussy’s music resulted in the book Debussy in proportion (1983); his recent book The Art of French piano music (Yale University Press) was named “2009 Book of the Year” by International Piano.

Roy’s concerts and masterclasses regularly take him worldwide.  He enjoys a wide repertoire and has premièred numerous works, some of them written for him and others discovered by him.  His performances with the Panocha Quartet of Prague have brought the house down at festivals in Japan, the Czech Republic and the UK, including a sold-out Wigmore Hall in London.  His recordings include Debussy’s complete solo piano works (on Tall Poppies), Chabrier’s piano music (on the French label STIL), Fauré’s complete music for violin and piano (with Alban Beikircher, on BMG/Arte Nova), a double album of Fauré piano solos and duets (with Emily Kilpatrick, on ABC Classics), plus various other CDs of chamber music.  He holds the post of Keyboard Research Fellow at London’s Royal Academy of Music.