Virginia Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; Kevin Deas
Biography Virginia Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; Kevin Deas
Kevin Deas - Baritone
is one of America’s leading basses, perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title rôle in Porgy and Bess. A strong proponent of contemporary music, he was heard at Italy’s Spoleto Festival in a new production of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors in honor of the composer’s 85th birthday, videotaped for worldwide release, and his twenty- year collaboration with Dave Brubeck has taken him to Salzburg, Vienna and Moscow. Kevin Deas’s list of recordings includes Die Meistersinger with the Chicago Symphony under the late Sir Georg Solti and Varèse’s Ecuatorial with the ASKO Ensemble under the baton of Ricardo Chailly. Other releases include Bach’s B minor Mass and Handel’s Acis and Galatea on Vox Classics and Dave Brubeck’s To Hope! with the Cathedral Choral Society on the Telarc label.
The Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
is now in its twenty-first season, and its fifteenth under the direction of Chorus Master Robert Shoup. In addition to regular appearances with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the chorus has performed outside Hampton Roads to remarkable acclaim. Under the baton of Robert Shoup, the Chorus has traveled to sold-out houses as far afield as Prague, Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Salzburg and closer to home at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Chorus has appeared twice at the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado, and was an integral part of the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Celebration. In 2010 the chorus was a key participant in the Virginia Arts Festival production of Bernstein’s Mass.
Founded in 1920, the Virginia Symphony is Southeastern Virginia’s pre-eminent professional symphony orchestra. It is ranked in the top ten per cent of professional orchestras nationwide and performs Classics, Pops and Family concert series in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News and Williamsburg, reaching more than 200,000 concert-goers every year as well as 63,000 children, students and lifelong learners with its education and community programs. Under the leadership of GRAMMY®-winning music director, JoAnn Falletta, the Symphony has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and is the cornerstone of the Performing Arts in Southeastern Virginia, providing orchestral support for the Virginia Opera, Virginia Arts Festival, the Ballet and Todd Rosenlieb Dance.
Robert Shoup, Chorus Master and Staff Conductor
Since he began with the VSO in 1997, Mr. Shoup has guided the Virginia Symphony Chorus through many critically acclaimed performances, including appearances across the US and Central Europe and collaborative projects with the Virginia Arts Festival, Breckenridge Music Festival, Mark Morris Dance Group, Todd Rosenlieb Dance, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus. In addition to Mr. Shoup’s podium appearances with the VSO in concert and live telecasts on WHRO-TV, he has conducted numerous other American and European orchestras. Mr. Shoup co-conducted Leonard Bernstein’s Mass with the VSO in 2010, and has spearheaded numerous special projects including the 2007 Festival of American Voices which earned a major NEA Grant. The Festival engaged nearly a dozen performing ensembles, featured the world première of Don Locklair’s Stirring the Silence and reached an audience of thousands through live and televised performances. He served as the choral leader of the 1,800 voice chorus commemorating the national 400th Anniversary of the Settling of
Jamestown. Mr. Shoup has prepared singers for diverse artists including Renée Fleming, Garrison Keillor, Jane Glover, Kristen Chenowith, and Petula Clark.
JoAnn Falletta
serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony in the United States and Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland. She has guest conducted over a hundred orchestras in North America, and many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa and is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center of North Carolina. Recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, winner of the Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter conducting awards, Falletta has also received eleven ASCAP awards and serves on the U.S. National Council on the Arts. A champion of American music, she has presented nearly five hundred works by American composers including over one hundred world premières. Her Naxos recordings include the double GRAMMY® Award-winning disc of works by John Corigliano and GRAMMY®-nominated discs of works of Tyberg, Dohnányi, Fuchs, Schubert, and Respighi.
