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Colin Balzer, Tenor
Colin Balzer, Tenor
An extraordinarily gifted, Germany-based young Canadian lyric tenor combining assured musicality and the communicativeness and varied tonal palette of a lieder specialist, Colin Balzer is fast becoming one of the most sought-after concert soloists of his generation. His 2006-2007 season promises a U.S. tour with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy, Paulus with the Quebec Symphony, St. John Passion with Tafelmusik, and a Mozart/Berlioz program for Music Director James Setapen’s farewell concerts with the Amarillo Symphony. In the 2005-2006 season he appeared with the Het Brabants Orkest (Cornelius’ Stabat Mater), Kenneth Montgomery and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Handel’s Athalia), the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Victoria Symphony (both for Handel’s Messiah), Early Music Vancouver (Bach and Telemann cantatas), and the Luxembourg Symphony (Mozart’s Idomeneo with Leopold Hager conducting). In addition he made important debuts with Bernard Labadie and the New Jersey Symphony and Mario Venzago and the Indianapolis Symphony, both in the Mozart Requiem. Summer 2005 included Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch at Finland’s Savonlinna Festival, Acis in Handel’s Acis and Galatea at Festival Vancouver, and the role of Gavust in the world-premiere performances of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow at the Boston Early Music Festival (including a performance at Tanglewood).
With repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Penderecki, Mr. Balzer has enjoyed critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, working with such conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Simone Young, Simon Preston, Yoav Talmi, Gabriel Chmura and Christof Perick, performing with the Hungarian and Polish National Radio Orchestras, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Oregon, Vancouver and Québec Symphonies, among many others. Particularly esteemed as a recitalist, he has been welcomed at London’s Wigmore Hall (accompanied by Graham Johnson), the Britten Festival in Aldeburgh, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Wratislavia Cantans in Poland, and at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Recordings to date include Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch and Eisler and Henze song anthologies.
A prizewinner of Holland’s ‘s-Hertogenbosch Competition, the U.K.’s Wigmore Hall Song Competition, and Stuttgart, Germany’s Hugo Wolf Competition, Mr. Balzer holds the rare distinction of earning the Gold Medal at the Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau with the highest score in 25 years. Masterclasses have been with such artists as Phillip Langridge, Helmut Deutsch, Robert Tear, Elly Ameling, Brigitte Fassbaender, Rudolph Jansen, and Christoph Prégardien. Born in British Columbia, he received his formal musical training at the University of British Columbia with David Meek and with Edith Wiens at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg/Augsburg.
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