Nathan Berg

With a “first-class voice” (The Boston Globe), Nathan Berg has emerged as one of the most in-demand bass-baritones of his generation. Berg enjoys a versatile career that incorporates a balance of concert, recital and operatic performances.

Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, three-time Grammy nominated and Juno award winning Nathan Berg did a majority of his musical studies in Canada, U.S. and France, finishing up at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied with Vera Rozsa and won the Gold Medal for Singers. He is a winner of prizes in the Royal Over-Seas League, Peter Pears, Kathleen Ferrier and Walther Gruner Lieder competitions.

With repertoire ranging from Bach and Handel to Mahler and Verdi, he has travelled extensively to perform with such conductors as Davis, Slatkin, Masur, Boulez, Harding, Hogwood, Salonen, Dutoit, Dohnanyi, Christie, Herreweghe, Tilson-Thomas, Abbado, Norrington, Haenchen, Rilling, King and Leppard. Mr. Berg has performed with numerous orchestras around the world including the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Montreal Symphony, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the National Symphony, the Rias Kammerchor, the Academy of Ancient Music, Les Arts Florissants and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra just to name a few. 

Mr. Berg starts his 2011-2012 season off with performances of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Houston Symphony, Atlanta Symphony and the Lanaudiere Festival. This is soon followed by debut performances with the Seattle Symphony and Maestro Ludovic Morlot with Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. Other Highlights of the season will be  Messiah's and Christmas concerts with the Edmonton Symphony, a tour of concert performances of Handel's Theodora with Le Concert Spirituel, Rameau's Les Indes Gallantes at Opera de Toulouse and Beethoven's 9th with the San Francisco Symphony and Maestro Tilson-Thomas. 

A busy operatic season in 2010-2011 saw Nathan Berg as the magician Zoroastro in Handel's Orlando, a new production presented by Opéra de Lille, Opéra de Dijon and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées by acclaimed director David McVicar and under the baton of Emmanuelle Haim. Mr. Berg then returned to l'Opéra national de Paris in a new production by Laurent Pelly of Handel's Giulio Cesare as Achilla, again with Emmanuelle Haim as well as a return to Edmonton Opera for his role debut as Scarpia in Tosca in the spring of 2011. Symphonic highlights for the 10/11 season included Dvořák's Te Deum with Cleveland Orchestra, Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center and in Philadelphia, the Mozart Requiem under Michael Tilson Thomas at San Francisco Symphony and the Verdi Requiem and assorted Bach cantatas with the Oregon Bach Festival. 

Symphony engagements from the 2009-2010 season included the St. John Passion with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, St. Matthew Passion with the Concertgebouw Orchestra,  Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Brahms Requiem with the National Arts Centre Orchestra as well as engagements with the Handel and Haydn Society and the Edmonton Symphony. Operatic highlights included The Rake's Progress and Semele at La Monnaie and Don Giovanni with The Calgary Opera. For his performance as Leporello Nathan was nominated in the category “Outstanding Performance By An Actor In A Comedy Or Musical” for Calgary’s prestigious Betty Mitchell Awards 2010.

At the Proms in London he has performed with the English Concert and Trevor Pinnock and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Belohlavek. Concert engagements include L'Enfance du Christ with Eschenbach and the Orchestre de Paris, Haydn's Creation under Daniel Harding with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castlewith the Montreal Symphony, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with the Toronto Symphony and Sir Andrew Davis, Mozart's Mass in C Minorwith the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall, and Haydn and Rameau concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under William Christie.

Other concert engagements have included Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Tanglewood Festival (Boston Symphony), the Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles Philharmonic), the National Symphony in Washington and with the Montreal Symphony, Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mozart's Requiemin a debut performance with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Handel's Messiah for his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Nicholas McGegan, and with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Neville Marriner, Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mozart's Requiem and Haydn's Nelson Mass with Les Violons du Roy in Montreal and at Alice Tully Hall, Haydn's Seasons with Les Arts Florissants and the Brahms Requiem with the Toronto Symphony.

Operatic roles have included the role of Argante in Rinaldo at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro for New York City Opera and the Netherlands Opera, with whom he also sang Manoa/Samson and Mercurio/L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Ferrando/Il Trovatore in Trieste, Schaunard/La Bohème for the Canadian Opera Company and with Ozawa in Tokyo and Colline in La Bohème at the Opera de Paris Bastille and Vancouver Opera. Also with the Opera de Paris Mr. Berg has sung Masetto /Don Giovanni, Thesée in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie and Huascar/Ali in Rameau's Les Indes Galantes. He had his recent debut with Wagner with the role of the Dutchman with Utah Opera and with Bartok with Bluebeard and the Montreal Symphony. He sang Guglielmo/Cosi fan tutte for Welsh National Opera, Vancouver Opera and Edmonton Opera and Leporello/Don Giovanni for New York City Opera and English National Opera. He also sang Leporello and Masetto in Peter Brook's production for Aix-en-Provence, conducted by Claudio Abbado and Daniel Harding in Aix and the tour that followed and was Masetto in Graham Vick's production at Glyndebourne, where he returned to sing the role of Alidoro in a new production of La Cenerentola at the 2005 Festival and Achilla/Giulio Cesare at the 2006 Festival. Other recent engagements include Leporello/Don Giovanni for Austin Lyric Opera, Texas, and in Moscow, and Marcello/La Bohème for Edmonton Opera. Mr. Berg  Recent concert work included Messiah with the Toronto and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras, Mozart's Mass in C with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Lorin Maazel, and the Mozart Requiem with the Orchestre de Lille and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with whom he will also sang the Bach Magnificat.

Mr. Berg is also a prolific recitalist and, working with eminent pianists such as Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles and Martin Katz, has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh Festival, Musee d'Orsay in Paris, the Blackheath Concert Halls, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Mr. Berg's large discography includes Handel's Messiah and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (Harmonia Mundi), Mozart's Requiem (Erato), Dvorak's Stabat Mater with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony; Bach's Mass in B Minor with Boston Baroque, songs by Othmar Schoeck with both the English Chamber Orchestra (Novalis) and with Julius Drake (Jecklin), Mendelssohn songs and duets with Sophie Daneman and Eugene Asti (Hyperion) and recordings of Rameau's Zoroastre and Handel's Theodora with Les Arts Florissants (Erato).

DVD highlights are Alidoro with Glyndebourne's production of Cenerentola, Huascar/Ali (Rameaus' Les Indes Galantes) with Paris Opera, and the recently released Armide by Lully where he appears as Hidraot. Soon to be released is Handel's Giulio Cesare with Paris Opera with Emmanuelle Haim conducting, Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra and Nathan Berg as Achilla. 

Orchestras/Organisations Nathan has Performed With;

North American

-New York Philharmonic

-Carnegie Hall 

-Chicago Symphony

-National Symphony, Washington,DC

-Los Angeles Philharmonic

-Atlanta Symphony

-Cleveland Orchestra 

-Boston Symphony Orchestra

-Montreal Symphony  Orchestra

-Hollywood Bowl/Los Angeles Philharmonic

-Tanglewood Festival

-National Arts Centre, Ottawa

-Toronto Symphony

-Colorado Symphony

-Edmonton Symphony

-Violons du Roy

-St Paul Chamber Orchestra

-St Louis Symphony

-San Francisco Symphony 

-Washington National Cathedral 

-Vancouver Symphony

-Oregon Bach Festival

-Nashville Symphony

-Memphis Symphony

-Handel and Haydn Society

-Boston Baroque

-Detroit Symphony

-Grant Park Festival, Chicago

-Saratoga Performing Arts Center

-Seattle Symphony

-Baltimore Symphony 

-Minnesota Orchestra 

-Milwaukee Symphony 

-Calgary Symphony

-Ann Arbor Symphony

-Naples Philharmonic

-Grand Philharmonic Choir/ Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony

-Pacific Symphony

-New Jersey Symphony

-Cincinatti Symphony

-Music of the Baroque (Chicago)

-Philadelphia Orchestra

-Houston Symphony

-National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico

-Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico

-Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra

Europe

-Berlin Philharmonic

-London Philharmonic

-Philharmonia

-Concertgebouw Orchestra

-Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

-Academy of Ancient Music

-Les Arts Florissants

-City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

-Mahler Chamber Orchestra

-Manchester Symphony

-Orchestre Nationale de Lille

-Freiburg Baroque

-Les Talens Lyrique

-Concert d’Astree

-English Chamber Orchestra

-BBC Symphony

-Three Choirs Festival

-Budapest Festival Orchestra

-Ulster Orchestra

-Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra

-Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon

Outside of Europe and North America

-Israel Philharmonic

-Sao Paulo Symphony 

-Singapore Symphony

Opera companies worked with;

-New York City Opera

-Utah Opera

-Arizona Opera

-Austin Lyric 

-Calgary Opera

-Vancouver Opera

-Edmonton Opera

-Canadian Opera Company

-Seiji Ozawa opera project in Japan 

-Bayerische Staatsoper (Baverian State Opera)

-Netherlands Opera

-Opera de Paris

-Opera de Lille

-Opera de Nice

-l'Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing 

-Theatre des Champs-Elysee

-Theatre Verdi Trieste

-Opera de Dijon

-Glyndebourne Festival

-La Monnaie

-Welsh National Opera

-Aix en Provence Festival

-Lyon Opera

-Royal Swedish Opera 

-Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, France

-Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, Spain

Conductors worked with;

-Abbado, Claudio

-Ashkenazy, Vladimir

-Bernardi, Mario

-Bolton, Ivor

-Boulez, Pierre

-Christie, William

-Dantone, Ottavio

-Davis, Sir Andrew

-Dohnanyi, Christophe van

-Dutoit, Charles

-Eschenbach, Christoph

-Fischer, Adam

-Glover, Jane

-Graff, Hans

-Haenchen, Hartmut

-Haim, Emmanuelle

-Halls, Matthew

-Harding, Daniel

-Herreweghe, Philippe

-Hogwood, Chrstopher

-Iseler, Elmer

-Jacobs, Rene

-Jurowski, Vladamir

-Kahane, Jeffrey

-King, Robert

-Labadie, Bernard

-Leppard, Raymond

-Lockhart, Kieth

-McGegan, Nicholas

-Mackerras, Charles

-Masur, Kurt

-Maazel, Lorin

-Morlot, Ludovic

-Nelson, John

-Nézet-Séguin, Yannick

-Norrington, Roger

-Oundjian, Peter

-Ozawa, Seiji

-Reineke, Steven

-Renes, Lawrence

-Rilling, Helmut

-Rosnebaum, Harold

-Rousset, Christophe

-Salonen, Esa-Pekka

-Slatkin, Leonard

-Spano, Robert

-Tilson-Thomas, Michael

-Welser-Möst Franz

-Zuckerman, Pinchas

Recital Experience

Recital Venue Highlights (selected list)

-Wigmore Hall, London, England

-Lincoln Center, New York

-Musee D’Orsay, Paris, France

-Edinburgh Festival, Scotland

-Blackheath Concert Halls, London

-Aix-en-Provence Festival, France

-Dijon Opera, France

-BBC Radio Studios, London

Accompanists

Graham Johnson

Malcolm Martineau

Julius Drake

Roger Vignoles

Martin Katz

Michael McMahon

Raymond Leppard