Kevin Deas, baritone-bass

Kevin Deas has gained international renown as one of America’s leading bass-baritones and is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, having performed it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Pacific Symphony. He has appeared with the Ravinia Festival, Vail Festival, Saratoga Festival, and at Italy’s Spoleto Festival in a new production of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors in honor of the composer’s eighty-fifth birthday, recorded on video for international release.

Kevin’s past seasons include performances of Mozart’s Requiem; Beethoven’s Missa Solemns; Mahler’s Symphony No; Handel’s Messiah with the National Cathedral, Boston Baroque, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bach’s St. John Passion, Haydn’s The Creation, Puccini’s Missa di Gloria, and Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses with Bach Festival Society of Winter Park; Verdi’s Requiem; Elgar’s Dream of Geronitus; Copland’s Old American Songs with the Chicago Symphony; Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with JoAnn Falletta at SUNY Potsdam; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Oratorio Society of New York; and Paul Moravec’s critically acclaimed opera The Shining with Opera Colorado.

A strong proponent of contemporary music, his twenty-year collaboration with the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck has taken him to Salzburg, Vienna and Moscow.

Kevin Deas has recorded Wagner’s Die Meistersinger with the Chicago Symphony under the late Sir Georg Solt; Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel’s Acis and Galatea; Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Virginia Symphony and Boston Baroque; and the world premiere recording of Dvorák’s Hiawatha Melodrama and the composer’s own arrangement of Goin’ Home with the PostClassical Ensemble.