Nathan Berg Bass-Baritone

Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, Nathan Berg did a majority of his musical studies in Canada, U.S. and France, finishing up at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied with Vera Rozsa and won the Gold Medal for Singers. A winner of prizes in the Royal Over-Seas League, Peter Pears, Kathleen Ferrier and Walther Gruner Lieder Competitions, Mr. Berg's musicality and artistry continues to receive international critical acclaim.With repertoire ranging from Bach and Handel to Mahler and Verdi, he has travelled extensively to perform with such conductors as Davis, Slatkin, Masur, Boulez, Harding, Hogwood, Salonen, Dutoit, Dohnanyi, Christie, Herreweghe, Tilson-Thomas, Abbado, Norrington, Haenchen, Rilling, King and Leppard. Mr Berg has performed with numerous orchestras around the world including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Montreal Symphony, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the National Symphony, the Rias Kammerchor, the Academy of Ancient Music, Les Arts Florissants, St. Louis Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. At the Proms in London he has performed with the English Concert and Trevor Pinnock and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Belohlavek. Concert engagements include L'Enfance du Christ with Eschenbach and the Orchestre de Paris, Haydn's Creation under Daniel Harding with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle with the Montreal Symphony, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with the Toronto Symphony and Sir Andrew Davis, Mozart's Mass in C Minor with the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall, and Haydn and Rameau concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under William Christie.Other concert engagements include Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Tanglewood Festival (Boston Symphony), the Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles Philharmonic), the National Symphony in Washington and with the Montreal Symphony, Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mozart's Requiem in a debut performance with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Handel's Messiah for his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Nicholas McGegan, and with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Neville Marriner, Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mozart's Requiem and Haydn's Nelson Mass with Les Violons du Roy in Montreal and at Alice Tully Hall, Haydn's Seasons with Les Arts Florissants and the Brahms Requiem with the Toronto Symphony.Operatic roles have included the role of Argante in Rinaldo at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro for New York City Opera and the Netherlands Opera, with whom he also sang Manoa/Samson and Mercurio/L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Ferrando/Il Trovatore in Trieste, Schaunard/La Boheme for the Canadian Opera Company and with Ozawa in Tokyo and Colline in La Bohème at the Opera de Paris Bastille and Vancouver Opera. Also with the Opera de Paris Mr. Berg has sung Masetto /Don Giovanni, Thesée in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie and Huascar/Ali in Rameau's Les Indes Galantes. He sang Guglielmo/Cosi fan tutte for Welsh National Opera, Vancouver Opera and Edmonton Opera and Leporello/Don Giovanni for New York City Opera and English National Opera. He also sang Leporello and Masetto in Peter Brook's production for Aix-en-Provence, conducted by Claudio Abbado and Daniel Harding in Aix and the tour that followed and was Masetto in Graham Vick's production at Glyndebourne, where he returned to sing the role of Alidoro in a new production of La Cenerentola at the 2005 Festival and Achilla/Giulio Cesare at the 2006 Festival. Other recent engagements include Leporello/Don Giovanni for Austin Lyric Opera, Texas, and in Moscow, and Marcello/La Boheme for Edmonton Opera. Recent concert work included Messiah with the Toronto and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras, Mozart's Mass in C with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Lorin Maazel, and the Mozart Requiem with the Orchestre de Lille and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with whom he will also sang the Bach Magnificat.Mr Berg is also a prolific recitalist and, working with eminent pianists such as Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles and Martin Katz, has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh Festival, Musee d'Orsay in Paris, the Blackheath Concert Halls, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at the Lincoln Center in New York.Mr. Berg's discography includes Handel's Messiah and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (Harmonia Mundi), Mozart's Requiem (Erato), Dvorak's Stabat Mater with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony; Bach's Mass in B Minor with Boston Baroque, songs by Othmar Schoeck with both the English Chamber Orchestra (Novalis) and with Julius Drake (Jecklin), Mendelssohn songs and duets with Sophie Daneman and Eugene Asti (Hyperion) and recordings of Rameau's Zoroastre and Handel's Theodora with Les Arts Florissants (Erato).A busy operatic season in 2010-2011 sees Nathan Berg as the magician Zoroastro in Handel's Orlando, a new production presented by Opéra de Lille, Opéra de Dijon and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées by acclaimed director David McVicar and under the baton of Emmanuelle Haim. Mr. Berg then returns to l'Opéra national de Paris in a new production by Laurent Pelly of Handel's Giulio Cesare as Achilla, again with Emmanuelle Haim as well as a return to Edmonton Opera for his role debut as Scarpia in Tosca in the spring of 2011. Symphonic highlights for the 10/11 season include Dvořák's Te Deum with Cleveland Orchestra, Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center, the Mozart Requiem under Michael Tilson Thomas at San Francisco Symphony and the Verdi Requiem and assorted Bach cantatas with the Oregon Bach Festival.Symphony engagements from the 2009-2010 season included The Passion According to St. John with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Brahm's Requiem with the National Arts Centre Orchestra as well as engagements with the Handel and Hayden Society and the Edmonton Symphony. Operatic highlights included The Rake's Progress and Semele at La Monniae and Don Giovanni with The Calgary Opera.

Date Last Edited: 27th August 2010