John Williams (Bass-Baritone)

Born: North Carolina (?), USA

The American bass-baritone, John Williams, is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, and also studied voice at Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He has received awards from the North Carolina Symphony, Charleston Symphony, and Winston-Salem Piedmont Triad Symphony, and was a Southeastern Regional Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions held in Atlanta.

Active as a soloist in oratorio performance, as well as recital, his New York performance debut was as baritone soloist in the Johannes Brahms Requiem at Carnegie Hall with the Manhattan Philharmonic Orchestra. His Kennedy Center debut was as soloist in George Frideric Handel’s Messiah with Paul Hill conducting. He has also performed as soloist with Paul Hill in the J. Brahms Requiem and the L.v. Beethoven Symphony No. 9. John Williams has performed with The Bach Aria Group and on Christmas Eve of 1992 he was soloist in a performance of G.F. Handel’s Messiah that was broadcast nationwide as the “CBS Midnight Mass,” a telecast that continues to be re-broadcast for international audiences during the Christmas season. In the 2001-2002 season, John Williams’s was bass soloist L.v. Beethoven's 9^th Symphony at the Eastman School of Music’s Gateways Music Festival and G.F. Handel’s complete Messiah with the Washington Chamber Symphony, Peter Simon, conducting, with the other soloists being Julianne Baird, soprano, Drew Minter, counter-tenor, and Michael Ford, tenor. He has performed extensively throughout Europe, and in 1997 he was baritone soloist with the St. Jacobs Chamber Choir of Stockholm of music by Judy Cloud in a concert recorded on a CD titled “Spirituals”, available on BIS Northern Lights label.

Source: Carolina Baroque Website
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (October 2003)

Recordings of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

Conductor

As

Works

Dale Higbee

Bass

BWV 21 (Part 1), BWV 39 (Part 2), BWV 140 (Mvts. 3-7), BWV 152 (Mvts. 2-6), BWV 182, BWV 234

Links to other Sites

Carolina Baroque - Instrumentalists & Singers