Grammy-winning American lyric tenor RICHARD CLEMENT
has performed with most of America’s major orchestras and music directors, bringing tonal beauty and superb musicality
to repertoire from the baroque to the contemporary. He recently earned particular acclaim for
the title role of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with the North Carolina Symphony and Sacramento Choral Arts
Society and Orchestra. In addition he premiered--and recorded--Theofanides' The Here and Now with Robert
Spano and the Atlanta Symphony, including performances in Atlanta and at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Among the most in-demand tenors for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, invitations include the Brooklyn Philharmonic,
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; New Jersey, Milwaukee, San Antonio, Oregon, San Diego, Baltimore, Nashville, Phoenix, Colorado
and Toledo Symphonies. He recently sung Elijah with the Memphis and Charlotte Symphonies; and the Verdi
Requiem with the the Santa Rosa Symphony and Chautauqua Music Festival Orchestra. 2008-2009 includes
a recital tour and returns to the Atlanta Symphony for concert performances of John Adams' Doctor Atomic
and the Memphis Symphony for Die Schoepfung.
Mr. Clement has performed the role of Belmonte in
Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony; Rachmaninoff’s
The Bells with Jeffrey Kahane and the Colorado Symphony; Carmina Burana with Neeme Järvi and the Detroit
Symphony, Haydn’s Die Schoepfung with Duain Wolfe and the Colorado Symphony; and Die
Schoepfung and two Mozart programs with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society
under Grant Llewellyn. He also sang Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht
and Second Symphony with Kurt Masur and the Israel Philharmonic; Toch’s Cantata of the Bitter Herbs
with the Czech Philharmonic; the Mozart Requiem with the Saint Louis Symphony; Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex
with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony; Kernis’ Millenium Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra;
Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony with the Atlanta Symphony; Tippett’s A Child of Our Time
with Jeffrey Kahane and the Santa Rosa Symphony; The Bells with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony in Lincoln
Center’s Avery Fisher Hall; Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis
with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In addition he has been guest soloist with the Cleveland and Philadelphia
Orchestras; Houston, Toronto, San Francisco and Cincinnati Symphonies, and collaborated with such conductors as Wolfgang Sawallisch,
Jesús López-Cobos, Bobby McFerrin, Daniel Harding, Christopher Hogwood, Carlo Rizzi, John
Mauceri, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff and James Conlon.
Festival engagements include Tanglewood (concert performance of Act
III of Verdi’s Falstaff), Beethoven #9 at both Grant Park and the Hollywood Bowl, and the Bach B Minor
Mass with Seiji Ozawa at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival.
Mr. Clement’s considerable operatic credentials include
Pedrillo in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Sir Colin Davis and the New York Philharmonic;
Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at Belgium’s De Vlaamse Opera and with the Colorado Symphony.
At the Vancouver Opera his roles include Nanki-Poo (The Mikado), Ferrando (Così fan tutte),
Little Bat (Susannah) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni); Ernesto (Don Pasquale) at Glimmerglass Opera;
Vanya (Katya Kabanova) and To-No-Chujo (Tale of the Genji) at Opera Theater of St. Louis; Belmonte (Entführung)
with the Boston Baroque; Lensky (Eugen Onegin) and Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore)
at Opera Festival of New Jersey; Candide, Lockwood (Wuthering Heights) and Fenton (Falstaff) at Boston Lyric
Opera; and Albert Herring with the Atlanta Opera.
Mr. Clement studied voice at Georgia State University
and the Cincinnati Conservatory, where he received his Master of Music degree. He was a Tanglewood Music
Festival Fellow, has been a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and was a recipient of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation
Jacobson Study Grant. Recordings include Britten’s War Requiem with the Washington Choral
Society, Bartók’s Cantata Profana with the Atlanta Symphony (both Grammy winners) and Tchaikovsky’s
Pique Dame.
