David McFerrin
Baritone
New England Second Place Winner, 2008

Praised by the New York Times for his “appealingly textured sound” and the Florida Sun-Sentinel for his “fine dramatic impact,” the young baritone David McFerrin has sung with the some of the country’s leading opera companies and is also a critically acclaimed performer of concert and recital repertoire. This season his operatic performances have included Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Miami’s Seraphic Fire, Mr. Webb in the New York premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town with the Juilliard Opera Center, and Taddeo in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, with which he recently made his international debut at the Rossini Festival in Wildbad, Germany. Other recent roles include Nardo in Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, John Styx in Offenbach’s Orfee aux enfers, Sam in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Morales in Bizet’s Carmen, which Mr. McFerrin sang with the Santa Fe Opera as a member of their elite Apprentice Artist program. He has also been a Young Artist with the Sarasota and Central City operas, and completed a two-year residency in the Florida Grand Opera Studio.

Mr. McFerrin’s concert performances have ranged from Mozart arias with the Miami Symphony to Bernstein Broadway classics with the Israel Philharmonic. Last winter he presented Schubert’s epic song cycle Die schöne Müllerin in New York, Florida and Minnesota, and last summer performed recitals as a member of the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Engagements this season include concerts with the Blossom Music Festival, New York Festival of Song and the Five Boroughs Music Festival, a performance of Eliot Carter’s Songs of Robert Frost as part of the composer’s centenary celebration at the Juilliard Focus Festival, and a residency with the French Early Music ensemble, Les Arts Florissants. Mr. McFerrin has been a soloist in Bach’s St. John Passion, Gounod’s St. Cecelia Mass, Handel’s Messiah and Joshua, Haydn’s Creation, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and the Fauré and Duruflé Requiems.

Mr. McFerrin was recently awarded a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation, given annually to promising young American opera singers. He has also been a regional finalist the past two years in the Metropolitan Opera National Council competition, recently placing 2nd in the New England Region. A native of western Massachusetts, he holds degrees from Carleton College and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and recently completed an Artist Diploma in Opera at The Juilliard School.

Visit Mr. McFerrin's website for more information.

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