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Nathaniel Watson

American baritone, Nathaniel Watson, has earned glowing critical acclaim for his performances in a wide variety of musical styles. As Mozart’s Papageno at the 1991 Carmel Bach Festival, he was deemed “ready for the world’s major stages” by the San Francisco Chronicle. And he was hailed in The New York Times for his “uncommonly fine performance” of the baritone solo in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Roger Norrington. In May of 1993 he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in Der Freischütz under Sir Colin Davis, and sang again with the orchestra two weeks later under Music Director Kurt Masur in Beethoven’s Ninth. He was then re-engaged by Maestro Masur and the Philharmonic for performances of Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, featuring the Swiss actress Marthe Keller as Jeanne. This concert was recently released on CD by New York Philharmonic Special Editions. Mr. Watson has appeared with the Symphony Orchestras of Houston, Minnesota, Montreal, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Boston, as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada in Ottawa, in music of Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, Schumann, and Bach. In December, 2000, he travelled to Japan for Messiah with the New Japan Philharmonic and Mendelssohn’s St. Paul with the Tokyo Oratorio Society under Hiroshi Gunji.

Mr. Watson has over thirty opera roles to his credit, including Agamemnon in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide (L’Opéra Français de New York), Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro (Opera Atelier, Toronto), and Silvio in I Pagliacci (Virginia Opera). He has sung Sid in Britten’s Albert Herring at the composer’s own Aldeburgh Festival, and, at the Banff Festival, the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. He appeared in the 1998 Salzburg Festival production of the Brecht/Weill Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, played Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the Berkshire Opera, and sang Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème for L’Opéra de Québec (May, ’97).

A frequent guest of Early Music ensembles, Mr. Watson was for three years a member of the Waverly Consort (New York), and performs regularly with Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy (Québec), the American Bach Soloists, and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco. He was soloist with Sir Roger Norrington’s London Classical Players in their first American concert in 1989. Mr. Watson was featured in the celebrated Boston Early Music Festival production of Purcell’s King Arthur in 1995, and played the title role in Boston Early Music’s 1999 production of Cavalli’s Ercole amante in Boston, at Tanglewood, and at the Utrecht Festival in Holland. In October of 2001 he sang and recorded the role of Abraham in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Agar et Imaele esiliati with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra.

A devoted Bach singer, Mr. Watson has recently been involved in recordings of the two Bach Passions: the St. John Passion under Eric Milnes on PGM recordings, and the St. Matthew Passion under Jeffrey Thomas for Koch International, both with period instruments. He has sung all the major Bach works at St. Thomas Church in New York City, the Bethlehem Bach Festival (Pennsylvania), and several other cites throughout North America with such conductors as Nicholas McGegan, Jeffrey Thomas, Bernard Labadie, James Richman, Ton Koopman, and Peter Schreier.

A graduate of the Eastman School, and the Yale School of Music, Mr. Watson is also an accomplished recitalist and interpreter of contemporary idioms. He has performed often in collaboration with pianists Barbara Lister-Sink and Herbert Burtis since 1990, and has appeared with the New York Festival of Song and the Schubertiade at the 92nd St. Y in New York with the late Hermann Prey. He has recorded works by the American composers Samuel Barber, Philip Glass, Andrew Imbrie, and Claudio Spies, as well as premiering works by Mr. Spies, Miriam Gideon, Scott Lindroth, Ronald Perera, Lewis Spratlan, and Earl Kim. He has several CDs to his credit in repertoire spanning five centuries. Mr. Watson lives in Montreal and in New York City.