Requiem

Peter Van Heyghen 

PETER VAN HEYGHEN was trained as a recorder player and a singer at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent (Belgium). Through the years he developed into an internationally acknowledged specialist in the field of historical performance practice of music between roughly 1500 and 1800. He performs worldwide as a soloist, with the recorder consort Mezzaluna, with the chamber music ensemble More Maiorum, as a singer with the Dutch vocal Renaissance ensemble Cappella Pratensis, and as a conductor of the Brussels Baroque orchestra Il Gardellino and other ensembles and orchestras throughout Europe and the United States. He is a regularly invited guest at the early music festivals of Bruges, Antwerp, Utrecht, Maastricht, and Regensburg among others.

In 2005 he was selected as the “festival star” of the Bruges Musica Antiqua festival by the Flemish radio channel Klara. Between 2007 and 2009 his ensembles were in residence at the Centre for Early Music Augustinus in Antwerp. He has recorded for the labels Passacaille, Eufoda, Accent, Opus 111, Klara and Ramée.

Peter Van Heyghen is also active as a researcher, publicist and teacher. He is professor of Historical Performance Practice at the Early Music Departments of the Royal Conservatories in Brussels and The Hague, and at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Furthermore he is regularly invited to give masterclasses, lectures and conduct workshops throughout the world.

Sarah Brailey

Hailed by The New York Timesfor her “radiant, liquid tone,” “exquisitely phrased,” and “sweetly dazzling” singing, soprano Sarah Brailey is in growing demand across all genres of classical music. She has performed Steve Reich at Carnegie Hall, Handel’s Messiah with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and with Kanye West and Roomful of Teeth at the Hollywood Bowl.

Highlights of Sarah’s current and recent seasons include Bach’s St. John Passion with St. Thomas Fifth Avenue; Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915with the Colorado Symphony; George Benjamin’s Dream of the Songwith the Lorelei Ensemble and Boston Symphony; Bach’s B Minor Mass and Purcell’s Fairy Queen with the Handel and Haydn Society; Webern’s Op. 13, 14, and 25 with Trinity Wall Street; Zweite Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with the Clarion Music Society; Ligeti’s Clocks and Clouds at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music; Bach’s Magnificat with Musica Angelica; various John Zorn works at venues worldwide including the Louvre Museum, Sarajevo Jazz Fest, and November Music in s-Hertogenbosch; a Nico Muhly world premiere for the MATA Festival; Costanza in Haydn’s L’isola disabitata with the American Classical Orchestra; Schoenberg’s Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten with the Brooklyn Art Song Society; Queen of Sheba in Handel’s Solomon with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra; and Britten’s Les Illuminations with NOVUS NY.

Among Sarah’s recording collaborators are tUne-yArDs, John Zorn, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Paola Prestini, and Bang on a Can All-Stars Stars (Julia Wolfe’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning work Anthracite Fields). Sarah is a featured soloist on numerous GRAMMY®-nominated albums including New York Polyphony’s Sing Thee Nowelland The Clarion Choir’s recording of Maximilian Steinberg’s Passion Week. She also appears as a soloist on the premiere recording of Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

Clara Osowski

Mezzo-soprano CLARA OSOWSKI, who sings “from inside the music with unaffected purity and sincerity” (UK Telegraph), is an active soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Europe. Recognized for her excellence in Minnesota, Clara was a recipient of the prestigious 2018-2019 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Musicians administered by MacPhail Center for Music.

In international competition with pianist Tyler Wottrich, in March of 2017, Clara became the first ever American prize winner when she placed second at Thomas Quasthoff’s International Das Lied Competition in Heidelberg, Germany. In September, the duo was also one of four to reach the finals in the prestigious Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation Song Competition in London, and Clara was awarded the Richard Tauber Prize for the best interpretation of Schubert Lieder. She recently won the Radio-Canada People’s Choice Award and third place in the song division at the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal.

2018-2019 season highlights include debuts with the Aspen Festival Chamber Orchestra, Mid-Columbia Symphony, Tulsa Signature Symphony, and the Mobile Symphony Orchestra.

Active also as an educator, Clara has enjoyed giving masterclasses and convocations at several universities, including Syracuse University, Muhlenberg College, Concordia College (Moorhead), and North Dakota State University. She was also the guest artist in residence at Indiana State University’s 50th Contemporary Music Festival celebrating the music of Libby Larsen and served on faculty at Aspen Music Festival’s Professional Choral Institute in collaboration with Seraphic Fire.

In addition to performing, Clara serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Source Song Festival, a week-long art song festival in Minneapolis,Minnesota. This festival strives to create and perform new art song, and cultivate an educational environment for students of song, including composers, vocalists, and collaborative pianists.

Scott Brunscheen

Scott J. Brunscheen’s “sweet and substantial lyric tenor” (Chicago Tribune) has garnered acclaim throughout the country in baroque, classical, and contemporary repertoire. His recent performances of Haydn’s L’isola disabitata, Marais’ Ariane et Bachus, and Cesti’s L’Orontea with Haymarket Opera received praise from Opera News, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and many others.

Recent concert and operatic engagements have included the world premiere of Stewart Copeland’s The Invention of Morel at Chicago Opera Theater, Mozart’s Die Zauberflote with Madison Opera, Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at Long Beach Opera, Mozart’s Requiem with Chicago Chorale and Haydn’s The Creation at DuPage University. He has also performed in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at Chicago Opera Theater, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and Donizetti’s La Favorite at the Caramoor Bel Canto Festival, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and The Rape of Lucretia with Chicago Fringe Opera, and Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited program.

As a young artist, Mr. Brunscheen understudied and performed in Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment, Puccini’s Tosca, and Heggie’s Dead Man Walking(Madison Opera); Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher, Mose in Egitto, Giasone, and Die Zauberflote (Chicago Opera Theater); Chin’s Alice in Wonderland and Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (Opera Theater of St. Louis); Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia (Caramoor Bel Canto Festival); Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola and Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Candid Concert Opera); and Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Opera New Jersey.

Outside of his work in opera, Scott has been the tenor soloist for multiple Bach cantatas, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s The Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus, Pergolesi’s Magnificat, Bach’s Magnificat and St. Matthew Passion, Resphigi’s Lauda per la Nativita, Donizetti’s Miserere, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Britten’s Serenade and Canticles, Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël, Stainer’s The Crucifixion, and Dubois’ Seven Last Words. He has been a finalist and prize winner in the Oratorio Society of New York, Handel Aria Competition, Grand Rapids Keller Bach Award, and American Prize in Opera. Scott is currently on faculty at Drake University and lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his husband and their dog.