Payare Conducts Mozart’s Moving Requiem ^2024-2025

Rafael Payare’s prodigious musicianship, technical brilliance and charismatic presence on the podium have made him one of the world’s most sought-after conductors. A graduate of the celebrated El Sistema music education program in Venezuela, Mr. Payare began his formal conducting studies in 2004 with José Antonio Abreu. Since winning the prestigious Malko International Competition for Young Conductors in Denmark in 2012, Maestro Payare’s career has advanced rapidly. Since 2015, he has served as Principal Conductor of the Castleton Festival, founded by his mentor the late Lorin Maazel. He was Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Ulster Orchestra from 2014 to 2019 and in 2019, took up the position of Music Director of the San Diego Symphony. In recent years, Rafael Payare has conducted many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including those of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Zurich, Berlin, Vienna, London, Munich, Chicago and Paris. He has also made important opera debuts at the Glyndebourne Festival, Stockholm’s Royal Swedish Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, and most recently at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In the 2022-2023 season, Payare became the ninth Music Director in the history of the OSM.

To consult:
rafaelpayare.com
Long biography

French-Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne is acclaimed for the vocal agility and expressive power of her dark-hued tone, focusing on the works of Berlioz, Mozart, and Rossini. In the 23/24 season, she will return to the Wiener Staatsoper, the Theater an der Wien, the Opéra Royal Wallonie-Liège, and the Opéra national de Lorraine. In concert, she will sing Mozart’s Mass in C with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Requiems of Fauré and Duruflé with Les violons du Roy, Mahler’s Symphony no. 3 with Seattle Opera, and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon.

A native of Richmond (Qc), tenor Joé Lampron-Dandonneau quickly made a name for himself during his university years. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the Université de Montréal and a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Victoria, he completed his vocal studies at McGill University, earning the Graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance in the class of soprano Dominique Labelle, and where he had the immense privilege of being a finalist in the prestigious 2019–2020 Wirth Vocal Arts Award. Since his graduation, Joé has had the opportunity to work with numerous professional choirs, including La Chapelle de Québec. He continues to make strides as a chamber music artist.

Since graduating from the Young Artists Programme of the Royal Opera House (UK), Canadian bassbaritone
Robert Gleadow continues to make his mark on stages around the world. His performances
at the Houston Grand Opera as Talbot in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda were lauded for “never lacking
conviction or genuine concern” and for “his plangent bass [that] rang out with a sonic boom.” This season, the title role in Don Giovanni. He will perform as Gugliemo in Così Fan Tutte at Opera de Lausanne and portray Figaro at Opera de Marseille. Gleadow can be heard as Lorenzo in Capuleti e Montecchi with Anna Netrebko, recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.

Jean-Willy Kunz, Organist-in-Residence with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, is responsible for the development and enhancement of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique. He has performed as a soloist with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Les Violons du Roy and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and has premiered works by significant composers. Owing to his various interests, Jean-Willy Kunz is involved in numerous projects that bring a fresh perspective to the organ: jazz with saxophonist Branford Marsalis; pop with Pierre Lapointe; stage music with Cirque du Soleil; contemporary music with Quatuor Bozzini; or Baroque music with Ensemble Caprice. His discography includes several recordings that demonstrate the versatility of his musical influences, notably Symphonie et créations for organ and orchestra with the OSM (Juno award, 2016). Jean-Willy Kunz is Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and Artistic Director of the Canadian International Organ Competition. 

Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, known for his unusually wide-ranging repertoire, extending from early music to newly composed works. He has prepared choruses for the American Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the National Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, and he has worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Alan Gilbert, Kurt Masur, and Kent Nagano. He is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Illinois and serves as Associate Conductor and Director of Choral Activities of the Carmel Bach Festival, as well as Artistic Director of the ensemble Fuma Sacra. He taught at Westminster Choir College and has been a Guest Conductor for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Broadcast by Public Radio International and the BBC, his work can be heard on numerous recordings, including those of Magnussen’s Psalm (Albany Records), Haydn’s Masses (Naxos), and works by Caleb Burhans (Cantaloupe).