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Ira Spaulding, born in New York, studied with Robert Simpson at Westminster Choir College in Princeton new Jersey (Bachelor of Music) and also holds a Master of Music in Voice and Choral Conducting from Eastern Kentucky University. He has given numerous recitals in America and has taught voice, vocal pedagogy and literature at several colleges. He has conducted various vocal ensembles; community oratorio choirs, church choirs, boys choirs, a women’s chorus and a jazz vocal ensemble.
Since moving to Europe in 1981 his reputation as a choral conductor, soloist and teacher has grown. Already in 1982 he was invited by Jessye Norman to sing the baritone role in the Robert Wilson production and recording in Paris of “Great Day In the Morning”. The following year he sang on the Dutch television show “Jonge Mensen op het Concert Podium” (Young People on the Concert Podium) and made his debut as a concert singer in the Concertgebouw singing the soli in “Messiah”with the Amsterdam Philharmonisch Orkest. He has since sung several times in the Concertgebouw’s “Kleinezaal” and also conducted in the “Grotezaal” with the Amsterdam Promenade Orkest. As a concert singer, he is often heard in such works as the Passions of J. S. Bach, the requiems of Brahms, Fauré Mozart and Verdi, the Elias (Elijah) & Paulus (St. Paul) oratorios of Mendelssohn but also Porgy & Bess (Concertgebouw 1992) and the musicals Showboat and Oklahoma (with the Rotterdam Philharmonic). Recitals have brought him not only to England Germany and Belgium but also the Donau cities of Passau, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. As part of “American Voices” Ira Spaulding has sung in various countries. During the 2000-2001 season alone he appeared in Saudi Arabia, Malta, Tunesia, Greece, Bahrain, Lithuania, Albania, Russia, Bosnia, and made his first appearances in Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma). Mr. Spaulding has given vocal Master Classes and Choral Workshops in nearly all these countries. As a choral conductor he conducts the oratorio choir of the University of Amsterdam (recent concerts included Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Brahms’ Schicksalslied, Lindberg’s Requiem for choir and Jazz band, and J. S. Bach’s Magnificat) and the chamber choir VOCOZA (including tours of Germany with this choir singing Mozart’s Requiem and Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary, Rossini’s Petite Messe Sollenelle). Ira Spaulding teaches at the City College of New York in New York City |
