The Leonids
The nine-voiced TTBB chamber ensemble will play a central role at VanMan and will be performing at The Turning: Chor Leoni & The Leonids on May 11.
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Eric Alatorre, Bass
Eric Alatorre is best known for his 28 seasons with professional vocal ensemble Chanticleer. His legendary career singing bass with Chanticleer began in the last century, and he has sung with and mentored many new generations of singers. He has enjoyed performing all over the country and the world, with plenty of time to explore his other passion: food. A part-time hedonist and full-time wine enthusiast, he has shared many wonderful dining experiences with his fellow singers on the road during stops in 37 countries.
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Enrico Lagasca, Bass-Baritone
Acclaimed to have “a beautiful sound” (New York Times), bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca is enjoying a diverse career as a soloist and chorister across North America with repertoire from Early to Contemporary Music. He is regularly seen with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and frequently sings with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Musica Sacra NY, Tenet Vocal Artists, Clarion Music Society, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Bach Collegium San Diego, Conspirare, Spire, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Seraphic Fire. Recent solo performances include Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, US premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Monster in the Maze, Beethoven 9, Haydn Creation, Bach Mass in B Minor, Mozart Requiem, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater. He currently resides in New York City. https://www.enricolagasca.com/
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Andrew Fuchs, Tenor
Tenor Andrew Fuchs’s wide-ranging repertoire includes an abundance of early music, which he has sung with such groups as Pegasus, Tenet, Artek, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and New York Polyphony. He recently made his Kennedy Center debut in Monteverdi’s Vespers with The Thirteen and his Lincoln Center debut in Bach’s Magnificat with the American Classical Orchestra. Equally passionate about contemporary music, Andrew has premiered a number of works, including the principal role of ME in Daniel Thomas Davis’s chamber opera Six. Twenty. Outrageous with AOP, Alexander Goehr’s song cycle Verschwindenes Wort for Juilliard’s Focus Festival, and Zachary Wadsworth’s oratorio Spire and Shadow with Downtown Voices. Other highlights include Reich’s Three Tales with Ensemble Signal, Liebeslieder Waltzes with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge with the Momenta Quartet. Andrew is an alumnus of the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar and the Tanglewood Music Center. www.andrew-fuchs.com
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Tim Keeler, Countertenor
Tim Keeler is music director of the San Francisco-based, GRAMMY® award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer. Performing nearly 100 concerts every year all over the world, Chanticleer has been a staple of the American choral sound for over 40 years. Prior to moving to San Francisco, Tim forged a career as an active conductor, singer, and educator. He has performed with New York Polyphony, The Clarion Choir, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and sang with Chanticleer for their 2017-2018 season. He has also performed frequently as a soloist, appearing regularly in the Bach Vespers series at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City, as well as with TENET, New York's preeminent early music ensemble. An avid proponent of new and challenging repertoire, Tim remains a core member of Ekmeles, a vocal ensemble based in New York City and dedicated to contemporary, avant-garde, and infrequently-performed vocal repertoire. While transitioning to his role as music director of Chanticleer, Tim is in the midst of completing his DMA in Choral Conducting at the University of Maryland where he studies with Dr. Edward Maclary. As an educator, Tim has directed the Men’s Chorus at the University of Maryland, served as director of choirs at the Special Music School High School in Manhattan, and worked closely with the Young People's Chorus of New York City as a vocal coach and satellite school conductor. He was also the choral conductor for Juilliard's new Summer Performing Arts program - a two-week intensive summer course in Geneva, Switzerland. Tim holds a BA in Music from Princeton University with certificates in Vocal Performance and Computer Science, an MPhil in Music and Science from Cambridge University, and an MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Michigan. While studying with Dr. Jerry Blackstone at the University of Michigan, Tim served as assistant conductor of the Grammy award-winning UMS Choral Union, preparing the choir for performances with Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. His dissertation at Cambridge explored statistical methods used in natural language processing and unsupervised machine learning as applied to musical phrase detection and segmentation.
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Sam Kreidenweis, Baritone
Bass-baritone Sam Kreidenweis’ stylistic versatility, rich sound, and engaging stage presence has gained him praise nationally and abroad. As a vocal chamber music artist Sam appears nationally with GRAMMY® Award-winning Conspirare (Austin, TX), Kinnara Ensemble (Princeton, NJ), Santa Fe Desert Chorale (Santa Fe, NM), Skylark Vocal Ensemble (Greater New England), True Concord Voices & Orchestra (Tucson, AZ), Vocal Arts Ensemble (Cincinnati, OH), and has sung previously with the GRAMMY® Award-winning Phoenix Chorale. Internationally, Sam works with the Dublin, Ireland based ensemble Anúna with whom he has toured throughout Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, China, and Japan. While singing with the Phoenix Chorale he recorded the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil with Chandos Records alongside the Kansas City Chorale, which received two Grammy nominations in 2016 and won for Best Choral Performance. Sam also sang for a season with the professional vocal ensemble Cantus. No stranger to the operatic and musical theatre stages, Sam has worked with the Dayton Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Arizona Opera Company, and the Lyric Opera Theatre at Arizona State University. http://www.samkreidenweis.com/
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Jacob Perry, Tenor
Tenor Jacob Perry Jr., based in the Washington Metro Area, receives praise for his “gorgeous and stylish” interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire (ClevelandClassical.com). He has been featured as a soloist with Apollo’s Fire, Handel Choir of Baltimore, Mountainside Baroque, Tempesta di Mare, The Thirteen, Washington Bach Consort, and The City Choir of Washington. Jacob was selected as the tenor participant of the Virginia Best Adams Masterclass of the 2020 Carmel Bach Festival. Deeply immersed in vocal chamber music, Jacob enjoys active membership in Les Canards Chantants, a soloist-ensemble based in Philadelphia, as well as engagements with ensembles such as The Thirteen, the Art of Early Keyboard (ARTEK), New Consort, and Cathedra. Additionally, he can be heard singing with larger choirs such as Yale Choral Artists, The Clarion Choir, Washington Bach Consort, and the Choir of Washington National Cathedral. He has explored the vocal works by contemporary composers through engagements with Third Practice, hexaCollective, and Great Noise Ensemble, and co-directs Bridge, a genre-defying vocal ensemble based in Washington. https://jacobperryjr.com/
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Daniel Schwartz, baritone
A Philadelphia native, Daniel has sung with the Opera Philadelphia chorus where he has performed a number of bit roles including The Foreman in the east coast premiere of Oscar. Daniel also sings with The Crossing, a two-time Grammy winning new music choir. He is a founding member of nationally renowned vocal sextet Variant 6. Two years ago he made his debut as a soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra for Pat Metheny and the American Beat. In addition to his singing career, Daniel holds the position of Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Voices of Pride.
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Steven Soph, Tenor
A “superb vocal soloist” (The Washington Post) with “impressive clarity and color” (The New York Times), tenor Steven Soph performs concert repertoire spanning the Renaissance to modern day. Recent seasons’ highlights include joining The Cleveland Orchestra for the Severance Hall premiere performances of Stravinsky’s Threni id est Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, an all-Handel program led by Ton Koopman, and Mozart’s Requiem led by Patrick Dupré Quigley. Steven performed Reich’s The Desert Music with the New World Symphony and Seraphic Fire; Mozart’s “Orphanage” Mass with San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra; and Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Bach Society of St. Louis and the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra. Steven performs with top American vocal ensembles including GRAMMY®-nominated Seraphic Fire and True Concord Voices & Orchestra; GRAMMY® Award-winning Roomful of Teeth and Conspirare; Gramophone® finalist Cut Circle; Trident; Yale Choral Artists; Santa Fe Desert Chorale; Oregon Bach Festival Berwick Chorus; Colorado Bach Ensemble; Sounding Light; Ensemble Origo; and Spire Chamber Ensemble. Steven holds degrees from the University of North Texas and Yale School of Music where he studied at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music with renowned tenor James Taylor. Steven attended the American Bach Soloists Academy in 2011, was a 2014 Carmel Bach Festival Adams Fellow, and a 2016 Oregon Bach Festival Young Artist. www.stevensoph.com
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Steven Caldicott Wilson, Tenor
Tenor Steven Caldicott Wilson regularly appears with Handel + Haydn Boston and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra NYC, and is a member of the twice GRAMMY-nominated classical a cappella vocal quartet New York Polyphony. He made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in December 2010 in Handel’s Messiah, and has had solo appearances at Symphony Hall Boston, Alice Tully Hall, and with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra NYC as the Evangelist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and multiple Bach cantata recitals. Steven is an engaging and versatile musician, combining sensitive expression with a disciplined attention to detail. His career has focused not only on historical performance practice but also the performance of new music. Additionally, Steven is a skilled pianist, teacher, and coach. A native of Virginia, he has been based in Pittsburgh since September 2019. He travels frequently, domestically and abroad, and eagerly pursues opportunities to prepare new works and to interpret historical music. Mr. Wilson is an enlisted veteran of the United States Air Force Band Singing Sergeants, and a graduate of Ithaca College and the Yale University Voice Masters program in early music, oratorio, and chamber ensemble. https://www.scwtenor.com/
