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The American bass-baritone, conductor, stage director and teacher, Andrew Walker Schultze, is well known as an interpreter of the standard opera/oratorio repertoire and as a specialist in the performance of early music. He has sung throughout the USA and Europe including appearances with the Chicago Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Opera Theater and the Syracuse, Kansas City and Indianapolis Operas. and has appeared in concert at Chicago’s Symphony Center, Millennium Park and Harris Theater, at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and at Milan’s La Scala Opera House. His cast of characters includes villains, heroes and buffoons in operas by Abbatini, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Charles Gounod, Engelbert Humperdinck and Puccini, as well as concert works spanning from the medieval Carmina Burana to Orff’s 20th century masterwork. He has sung with the Chicago Lyric Opera, DuPage Opera Theater, Sacramento Opera, Pittsburgh Opera Theater and the Syracuse and Indianapolis Operas. He has appeared in concert at Chicago’s Symphony Center and Harris Theater, at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, in Vienna, Venice, Vilnius, Paris, Lisbon, Rome, Prague, Berlin, Barcelona, Zürich and at Milan's La Scala Opera.
In 1988, Andrew Schultze took over the artistic direction of the early music ensemble Ars Musica Chicago and began to explore repertoire from other musical periods. He has led the ensemble in performances of music from the 12th through the 18th centuries. In 2004-2005 season, for example, he presented the ensemble in concerts of Italian Medieval Music, Italian Baroque Music, Music by Black composers from The Age of Slavery and Baroque works from Spain and Mexico. In the spring of 2006, following many years of dedicated service, Andrew Schultze retired as Music Director. He is also the founder and director of Chicago Syntagma Musicum. In 2004-2005 season, he conducted this ensemble in an all Antonio Vivaldi program (including the famous Gloria). As an early music specialist, he has been a longtime member of Vienna’s Clemencic Consort and Innsbruck’s Affetti Musicali. In addition, he is member of the Grant Park Symphony Chorus.|
His performances have been broadcast on television and radio in Europe and in the USA. Andrew Schultze has produced concert events for the Spertus Institute, Chicago Humanities Festival, Ars Musica Chicago, Chicago Syntagma Musicum, Michigan Festival of Sacred Music, the Center for Black Music Research and the University of Chicago.
Recent engagements (as of 2013) include performances of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion (BWV 245) and St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), Cantatas BWV 39, BWV 56, BWV 80, BWV 120, and Magnificat (BWV 243), George Frideric Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Johannes Brahms’ Requiem, Bloch’s Sacred Service, concerts of Russian songs by Mussorgsky and Igor Stravinsky, sacred music by the Bach family, Jewish music from Baroque Italy, and Schubert opera arias.
Andrew Schultze is a member of the voice faculty of Columbia College, the University of Chicago and vocal instructor at the International Seminar for Early Music at Zell an der Pram in Austria (summer 2008). He holds positions as bass soloist at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel and at Chicago Sinai Congregation. He has presented master-classes and participated in early music workshops and conferences, including presentations for The Society for Seventeenth Century Music, Innsbrucker Musikpaedagogik-Institut, Ars Musica Chicago, Vienna Baroque Ensemble, American Recorder Society, West Virginia University, University of Pittsburgh, Roosevelt University, Elmhurst College, University of Indiana at Terre Haute, University of Chicago and and the Chicago Humanities Festival. His article "Performing Amarilli Mia Bella" was published in the National Association of Teachers of Singing' Journal of Singing in the January/February 2000 issue. |
