Mozart's Idomeneo in Bremen under Minkowski (2009): “Colin Balzer, in this production more a conflicted father than authority
figure, brought to the title role a deeply felt, velvety, lieder-interpreter tenor of the highest order."
-Weser Kurier |
Bach Cantatas with Early Music Vancouver:
"This
particular assortment of cantatas favoured tenor Balzer, who can sing Bach's often attenuated lines with a lithe, seemingly
effortless lightness, then ratchet up the drama for recitatives and quasi-operatic arias like the tempestuous 'Stuermt nur,
stuermt' from the intimately scaled Cantata BWV 153."
-The Vancouver Sun |
December 2009 Debut on the distinguished Philadelphia Chamber
Music Society series:
“A splendid recital...he produces a sound evoking modern deities Anthony Rolfe Johnson
and Richard Croft--clear, floaty, but with a solid baritonal underpinning. His technique permits long lines, seemingly
perfect intonation, and--as the melismatic passages in the Britten portion of the evening demonstrated--wonderful agility.
A first half alternating Haydn and unhackneyed Schubet songs showed excellent, expressive diction in both English and German
and cultivated style, plus a kind of 30-something boy-next-door charm...One could have heard a pin drop--until the prologned
ovations.” -David
Shengold, Gay City News |
With assured musicality and the varied tonal palette of a lieder
specialist, Canadian lyric Colin Balzer's current season includes a debut on the distinguished Philadelphia Chamber Music
Society series, Messiah with the Edmonton and Toronto Symphonies, his Atlanta Symphony debut in the Mozart Coronation
Mass under Roberto Abbado; Mozart's Idomeneo and Mass in C in Salzburg under Marc Minkowski; Bach's
St. Matthew Passion and Cantatas with Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent and Don Ottavio in Mozart's
Don Giovanni with Louis Langree conducting at France's Aix-en-Provence Festival. In 2010-11 New York hears
his solo recital debut at the Frick Collection, as well as Messiah with Kent Tritle conducting both Musica Sacra
and the Oratorio Society of New York, the latter at Carnegie Hall. In addition he participates in the Boston Early Music
Festival performances and recording of Steffani's Niobe.
Recent seasons includes the
title role of Monteverdi's Orfeo in Edmonton, Haydn's Die Schoepfung with Yoav Talmi and the Quebec Symphony,
Haendel's Messiah with the Calgary Philharmonic, the Mozart Requiem with the National Philharmonic, Mendelssohn's
Elijah with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Purcell's The Fairy Queen with Early Music Vancouver, Haydn's
Lord Nelson Mass throughout Belgium with Philippe Herregweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent; a European tour of Haendel's
Brockes Passion with Marcus Creed and the Akademie fuer alte Musik; and the role of Sacerdote in Mozart's
Idomeneo under Marc Minkowski at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Mr. Balzer has given concerts with the Het Brabants Orkest, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Luxembourg Symphony, Munich Bach
Choir, Leipzig Baroque Orchestra, Toronto’s Tafelmusik, Quebec's Les Violons du Roy, the Victoria, Quebec, Indianapolis,
Ann Arbor, Oregon and New Jersey Symphonies. In addition he sang
Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch at Finland’s Savonlinna Festival, Acis in Handel’s Acis and
Galatea at Festival Vancouver, and Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow and Lully's Psyche
at the Boston Early Music Festival. He frequently collaborates with such distinguished conductors as
Leopold Hager, Bernard Labadie, Helmuth Rilling, Simone Young, Simon Preston, Gabriel Chmura, Christof Perick, Mario Venzago
and Kenneth Montgomery.
Particularly esteemed as a recitalist, he has been welcomed at London’s Wigmore Hall
(accompanied by Graham Johnson), the Britten Festival in Aldeburgh, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Wratislavia
Cantans in Poland, and at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Recordings to date include Wolf’s Italienisches
Liederbuch and Eisler and Henze song anthologies. A prizewinner of Holland’s ‘s-Hertogenbosch
Competition, the U.K.’s Wigmore Hall Song Competition, Stuttgart, Germany’s Hugo Wolf Competition
and Munich's 55th International ARD Competition, Mr. Balzer also holds the rare distinction of earning the Gold Medal at the
Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau with the highest score in 25 years. Born in British Columbia,
he received his formal musical training at the University of British Columbia with David Meek and with Edith Wiens at the
Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg/Augsburg.
