Barbara Rearick - mezzo-soprano
Barbara Rearick is a performer of great versatility and sensitivity whose wide repertoire embraces opera, oratorio, Lieder and popular American Song.
Her gift for interpretation has resulted in her being chosen for a number of important world premieres including the orchestral version of Britten’s A Charm of Lullabies with Steuart Bedford conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Aldeburgh Festival; A History of the Thé Dansant, a song cycle written for her by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett; Toward a Time of Renewal by Joelle Wallach at Carnegie Hall, People you dreams by Jonathan Lloyd with the Britten-Pears Ensemble, and The Mary Shelley Opera by Allan Jaffe, creating the title role in New York for the Parabola Arts Foundation. Ms. Rearick also performed the world premiere of the complete version of Mendelssohn's Grosse festmusik zum Duererfest with Amor Artis Orchestra in 2002.
In the U.S. her recent engagements include Weill’s The Eternal Road with Milken Archive in New York (also recorded for Naxos); Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Keith Lockhart and Utah Symphony; Britten’s Spring Symphony under Jeff Kahane; Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes with Mark Morris at BAM; Haydn’s Paukenmesse with Voices of Ascension; Bach Cantatas 147 and 200 at the Northwest Bach Festival under Gunther Schuller; Bach's Magnificat, Cantata 147 and 53 with Dennis Keene and Voices of Ascension and Prokofiev's The Ugly Duckling with the Baltimore Symphony.
Her many performances of Handel’s Messiah include Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall, for the Northwest Bach Festival under Gunther Schuller and with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Baltimore and Houston Symphony Orchestras. She has also performed Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio for the Northwest Bach Festival; Mozart’s Great Mass and the Bach’s B-minor Mass with Syracuse Symphony; Britten's Spring Symphony with Nashville Symphony; Nicholas Maw's Nocturne with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra; and Copland's Old American Songs with Wheeling Symphony.
As a specialist in the music of Benjamin Britten, the American mezzo made her British debut at the Aldeburgh Festival as Britten's Lucretia in 1987 and has since performed in the U.K. with the Orchestra of St John's Smith Square under Harry Bicket; the Irish Chamber Orchestra; Britten Sinfonia; Manchester Camerata, and the London Bach Orchestra. In 1995 she sung for the first time with the HaIIé Orchestra performing songs by Jerome Kern, returning for Handel's Dixit Dominus and Bach's Magnificat under Nicholas McGegan, and songs by Richard Rodgers for the HaIIé Proms.
As a recitalist she has worked with Martin Katz, Dale Dietert and Martin Jones, with whom she performed songs by Percy Grainger in the inaugural Festival at the Nimbus Arts Centre in Wales in 1995. She has performed at New York’s Symphony Space in their ‘Wall to Wall Debussy and Ravel’, and she has given recitals with the composer and pianist Sir Richard Rodney Bennett in many parts of Great Britain including the Wigmore Hall, and in the USA. She has appeared as recitalist at British Festivals including the Aldeburgh, Buxton, Chester, Norwich, Ryedale and Spitalfields Festivals, at the AerFi Killaloe Festival in Ireland.
Operatic roles include Lucretia in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at Aldeburgh and at Sala Cecilia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro; Meg Page in Verdi's Falstaff with Chautauqua Opera; the Mother in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors and Mrs. Nolan in Menotti’s The Medium with New York's Center for Contemporary Opera: Annina in Verdi's La Traviata with the New York City Opera; the Cook in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol with Kansas City Symphony under Anne Manson; Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro with Harrisburg Opera and Maddelena Rigoletto with the Spokane Symphony. She recorded the roles of Miriam and Ruth in Kurt Weill’s The Eternal Road with Gerard Schwarz in Berlin.
With the Britten-Pears Ensemble she performed throughout Great Britain and in the USA, and recorded works by Jolivet and Frank Martin for ASV, and given regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. She has performed the Schoenberg arrangement of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden gesellen with the Britten-Pears Ensemble at Snape Concert Hall, and with the Richardson Chamber Players in Princeton. She has collaborated with many chamber ensembles including the New York Chamber Ensemble and the New York New Music Ensemble.
Barbara Rearick was born in Pennsylvania and studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Margaret Hoswell. She attended master classes at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies with Nancy Evans and Anthony Rolfe Johnson, and at the Steans Institute for Vocal Studies in Illinois with Victoria de Los Angeles and Martin Katz. She is currently a voice professor at Princeton University.