Baritone ELEM ELEY enjoys a remarkably varied career, from opera, oratorio and recital to premieres of art song and cabaret music. The current season (2007-2008) features Carmina Burana with Richard Westenburg conducting Musica Sacra, in a concert at the Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center. That concert will include the world premiere performance of Cantata for Revival, for solo baritone and orchestra, by the Italian composer Alessandro Cadario. Mr. Eley also returns to the Springfield (MO) Symphony for the great Ninth ("Choral") Symphony of Beethoven, and to the Westfield Oratorio Singers for Bach's Mass in B Minor. Recitals during this year include a revisit of Schubert's Winterreise in Princeton (with pianist J.J. Penna), and Masters of Modern American Art Song II (music of Tom Cipullo, David Eddleman and Gardner Read), with soprano D'Anna Fortunato, tenor Michael Polscer, and pianist Frank Daykin, at Symphony Space in New York City. Additionally, a new CD with Penna -- Drifts and Shadows: American Song for the New Millennium -- will be released in future months.
The most recent (2006-2007) season included a début with the Buffalo Philharmonic in concert performances of Daron Hagen’s opera, Shining Brow. He created the role of James Joyce in Hagen’s The Antient Concert, a one-act dramatic recital staged by the composer, with a June performance at Symphony Space in New York City; a November, 2007, staging of the work is scheduled for the Century Association in New York. In December of '06, he again sang Messiah with the Peniel Concert Choir at Avery Fisher Hall. May '07 brought a return to Carnegie Hall, as soloist in Carmina Burana and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, with the St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by David Randolph. He revisited Vermont for Elijah with the Burlington Choral Society, and sang Donald Giovanni in PDQ Bach’s The Abduction of Figaro, with Prof. Peter Schickele narrating for the Western New York Chamber Orchestra. Spring of 2006 brought Mr. Eley's maiden voyage on the H.M.S. Pinafore as Captain Corcoran, with the Syracuse Opera; Bach's Cantata 82 (Ich habe genug) on Musica Sacra’s Basically Bach Festival in New York, conducted by Richard Westenburg; Beethoven’s Mass in C with the New Jersey Master Chorale; and three performances of Carmina Burana at Rowan University, conducted by Robert Page. 2005 featured Mr. Eley's debut in Verizon Hall of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, as soloist in Carmina Burana.
Elem Eley created the role of Dumdum Devine in the world premiere of Vera of Las Vegas, by Daron Hagen and Paul Muldoon, at New York’s Symphony Space Thalia Theater. He has sung premieres by various other contemporary composers, among them Laurie Altman, David Eddleman, David Sampson, Joseph Summer, and Stefan Young, and is featured on recordings of songs by Altman, Summer and Young. As Winner of the Joy in Singing Award, Mr. Eley made his New York recital debut in 1996 at Merkin Hall, and has been recognized in such prestigious competitions as those of the Oratorio Society of New York (finalist), the Musica Sacra Bach Competition (finalist), the Metropolitan Opera National Council and the San Francisco Opera. He and pianist J. J. Penna ushered in the new millennium with a recital of American art song at Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, and are compiling a CD of art songs by living American composers, to be released in 2007. Mr. Eley has been soloist at the Breckenridge, Westminster Choir College Summer Choral and Wilmington Music Festivals, the Weimar (Germany) Summer Festival, the Brattleboro Music Center, and the Westfield Bach Festival. Performances have been televised on WNET and in national syndication, with additional recording on Albany Records, Arsis Records, and MusicMasters Classics. In addition to his active performance career, Mr. Eley is Professor of Voice at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where he has taught since 1987.
