Alan Dunbar, Baritone

Lauded for his beautiful tone and his nuanced musical and textual interpretation, baritone Alan Dunbar is a versatile performer, at home in opera, oratorio, art song, and folk and popular music. Upcoming engagements include Alan’s debut with Madison Opera as Alidoro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola. In May 2012 he will sing the world premiere of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Chicago composer Shawn Brogan Allison, in a performance with eighth blackbird, Pacifica Quartet, and Anubis Quartet. June 2012 will take Alan to Opera Company of Philadelphia where he will cover the lead male role of Prophet/King in Nico Muhly's new opera, Dark Sisters, a role he covered for the world premiere with Gotham Chamber Opera in November 2011.

Recent performances and accolades include the role of the Composer and the cover of Mr. Scattergood in Menotti's The Last Savage during the 2011 season at Santa Fe Opera. He also covered Benoit/Alcindoro in Santa Fe Opera's production of La Bohème, and performed the role of Sweeney Todd in the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Scenes. In April, Alan recreated the role of Webster Wordsworth in the Santa Fe Opera's 2011 Spring Tour. During the 2010 Santa Fe Opera season he sang Yakuside in Madama Butterfly, as well as the cover of Clotaldo in the world premiere of Louis Spratlan's Life is a Dream. In 2009 Alan made his European solo recital debut at the Oslo Grieg Festival, performed as bass soloist in Stravinsky's Pulcinella under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos at the Tanglewood Music Festival, and won the grand prize at the 2009 Grieg Festival in Winter Park, FL. Other appearances include the title role in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle at the 2008 Natchez Opera Festival, and Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin at the 2008 Tanglewood Music Festival with Renée Fleming and Peter Mattei. During his tenure at Indiana University, he sang principal roles in twelve IU Opera Theater productions, including Pandolfe in Massenet's Cendrillon, Leporello (Don Giovanni), Dulcamara (L'elisir d'Amore), Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Jules Goddard (A Wedding), Louis (A View from the Bridge), and St. Peter (Too Many Sopranos).

In addition to opera, Alan has extensive experience on the concert stage, having performed the bass solos in Bach's St. John's Passion, Handel's Dettingen Te Deum and Messiah, the Mozart Requiem, Haydn's Missa in Tempore Belli, and Schumann's Requiem für Mignon, among many others. He has collaborated with choreographer/director Mark Morris in performances with the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as in the Stravinsky chamber opera Renard.

Alan holds a BA in music theory and composition from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, and an MM and DMA in vocal performance from Indiana University, where he studied with Costanza Cuccaro. From 1998 to 2004 Alan sang throughout North America and Europe with the Minnesota-based internationally acclaimed male chamber vocal ensemble Cantus. During his tenure with Cantus, he recorded ten albums and appeared as a soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, at the Oregon Bach Festival, the 2002 World Choral Symposium, and the 2003 Polyphonia Festival in Normandy, France. He has also composed and arranged many pieces for the ensemble, including Alleluia Amen, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot), Bashana Haba'ah (Manor/Hirsh), and Stick to the Craythur (trad. Irish).