Drew Minter

2001 Semi-finals Judge

Among the world's premier countertenors, Drew Minter began his musical pursuits at the age of 9 as a boy treble at the Washington National Cathedral. He studied first at Indiana University, where he received his B.S. in Music and Languages in 1977, then at the Vienna Musikhochschule where he received his Diploma in Lieder and Oratorio in 1979. Twice he won prizes at the Bruges Early Music Competition, in 1977 as a member of the Collegium Musicum Budapest, and again in 1983 as a soloist. He also won prizes at the 's-Hertogenbosch International Singing Competition in 1976 and the 1981 Erwin Bodky Prize for Early Music in Boston. Subsequently, he was also awarded Martha Baird Rockefeller and Fulbright study grants.

Mr. Minter is a founding member of The Newberry Consort, which is in its eighteenth season. In addition to a number of acclaimed recordings on Harmonia Mundi USA, the Consort gives a regular season of concerts in the Chicago area and tours once or twice a season nationally. He collaborates frequently with the Folger Consort, ARTEK, Pomerium and other American early music ensembles. For several seasons in the early 1990s he directed and sang in Ensemble Five/One, a Washington-based vocal chamber music group. With Five/One he created programs and season brochures and designed a series of concerts in historic churches.

Represented by over 40 recordings of opera, oratorio, recital and chamber music, Mr. Minter has also appeared in two films: Peter Sellars's Giulio Cesare (as Tolomeo) on London/EMI, and a biography of the life of Hildegard von Bingen, In the Symphony of the World (as the Devil) by Flare Productions. His oratorio and recital engagements with orchestras and oratorio societies in America and Europe are too numerous to list.

In recent seasons Mr. Minter has broadened his activities to include playing early harps. Lately he founded Trefoil, a trio of early music specialists who both sing and play on plucked strings the virtuoso French ars subtilior repertoire of the late 14th century. He is also a founding member of My Lord Chamberlain's Consort, a renaissance vocal and plucked-string band, with whom he sings and plays early harps. His recital, "Sweet Sorrow: Medieval Songs of Parting," is a virtuosic self-accompanied journey of songs of the troubadours and minnesingers. In addition, he has written a number of scholarly articles and reviews for music publications such as Opera News.

Since 1994 Mr. Minter has directed over twenty productions of opera and musical theatre. Known for his performances and recordings of the music of Handel, Mr. Minter has done more than two dozen of Handel's dramatic works on the stage as either singer or director, and sometimes as both. His knowledge of baroque stage practice, in particular the acting methods of the 18th century, is extensive. In recent years he has taught masterclasses in both the musical and dramatic interpretation of baroque opera, (as well as later opera), especially the physical gestures and ornamentation which were a working part of every baroque singer's arsenal.

Drew Minter now teaches voice on the faculties of Vassar and Smith Colleges, and is a guest artist of the Opera Institute of Boston University, where he directed Cendrillon this past fall. In addition, he has taught annually at the Amherst Early Music summer academy for the past six years.

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