Dan Foster was trained in Sacred Music at Westminster Choir College as a singer, pianist, organist, and conductor. His teachers included Joan Lippincott (organ), Joseph Flummerfelt and James Jordan (conducting), Thomas Faracco and Marvin Keenze (voice performance/pedagogy), and Dalton Baldwin, the late Glenn Parker, and J.J. Penna (accompanying). He studied the training of young singers at the American Boychoir School. As a tenor, Mr. Foster sang for three years in the Spoleto Festival International appearing in Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss), The Excursions of Mr. Brocek (Leos Janacek), and Falstaff (Verdi) and has returned for the past two years as the organist and pianist with the Antioch Chamber Ensemble. He has sung for two years at the Pitten Festival, Austria, appearing in The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan), and as Gaston in La Traviata (Verdi).
Mr. Foster has sung concert tours in Taiwan, Korea, France, Holland, and Italy. He has performed and recorded extensively with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, performing many masterworks including the Mass in B-Minor, The Passion According to St. John (J.S. Bach), Ein Deutches Requiem (Johannes Brahms), Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher (Arthur Honegger), and War Requiem (Benjamin Britten). He has also recorded with the renowned early music ensemble Fuma Sacre.
Major works Mr. Foster has conducted include two of Vivaldi’s settings of the Gloria RV 588 and RV 589; Magnificat, Cantata 131 “Aus der Tiefe” and Cantata 140 “Wachet auf” by J.S. Bach; Messiah by G.F. Handel; Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms; Fauré’s Requiem and Messe Basse; the premier of Timothy Luby’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, the premiers of Magnificat and Te Deum by Larry G. Nuckolls, and the premier of The Joseph Triptych by Thomas F. Savoy.
Mr Foster is the founder and director of Aœde Consort.
Vivien Shotwell, Mezzo Soprano, has received several awards including First Place in the National Association of Teachers of Singing, earned her Bachelors Degree from Williams College, and is currently working on her Masters in Arts in Voice from the University of Iowa. Ms. Shotwell also received the Nova Scotia Talent Trust Grant in both 2001 and 2008, along with the Walker Quartet Scholarship from University of Iowa last year. Operatic roles for Ms. Shotwell include Giulio Cesare while at the Halifax Summer Opera Workshop in 2007, and Dritte Dame from Die Zauberflöte at University of Iowa. Concert and Oratorio repertoire include soloist for Israel in Egypt, Lord Nelson Mass, and St. Joseph Mass, along with a Benefit Opera Gala appearance at the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Most recently, Ms. Shotwell sang the role of Public Opinion in Orpheus in the Underworld at the University of Iowa.
Ms. Shotwell is a 2009 regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera contest.
Woodrow Bynum, an Arkansas native, is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and University of Michigan, where he was a pupil of Lorna Haywood and Robert Glasgow. He studied at The Juilliard School as a pupil of Beverley Peck Johnson and sang for four years as a Gentleman of the Choir of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. He made his professional singing debut with the Illinois Symphony and has performed extensively throughout North America. He was a national semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and won first prize in the National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Young Artist Competition.
Mr. Bynum made his Carnegie Hall debut as a baritone soloist with the New York Oratorio Society, and sang in Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes as the soloist in Handel’s Messiah. He was lauded by the New York Times for his “fine free baritone register.” He has sung the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah and has performed as the bass in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on numerous occasions. His recent engagements have included Handel’s Messiah with the Dallas Bach Society, Bach’s St. John Passion with St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue and with Albany Pro Musica, and Bach’s Wachet Auf in Massachusetts. His upcoming engagements include Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem in Niskayuna, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Chapin Hall (Williams College), and conducting The Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms in May.
Mr. Bynum serves as Director of Music at The Cathedral of All Saints in Albany where he conducts The Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys.
Erin Kathleen Casey was most recently seen with Center Stage Opera as Mimì in La Bohème. Other roles include Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Soeur Constance in Les Dialogues des Carmélites, Adele in Die Fledermaus, and Jenny in Company. In December she appeared as the soprano soloist in G.F. Handel’s Messiah at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Woodstock, Vermont. She will be singing the role of Fiordiligi in Act I of Così fan tutte with Williams Opera this May. She was the recipient of the Francesco and Hilda Riggio Award in the New England Regional Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2005, and was the Third Place Finalist in the Bel Canto Foundation Competition that same year. Her scenes include Mélisande in Pelleas et Mélisande, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Gilda in Rigoletto, and many others. She was also the soprano soloist in John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music at Northwestern University, Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem with the DePaul University Choirs and Chamber Orchestra, Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Hodie with the Northwestern University Chorale, and Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben with Intimate Opera Chicago. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from DePaul University, where she studied voice with internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer. She earned a Master’s Degree from Northwestern University in Vocal Performance. She currently studies privately with mezzo-soprano Heidi Skok. She has been a Studio Instructor of Voice at Williams College since 2006.
