Douglas Williams, bass-baritone

“The gifted young bass-baritone Douglas Williams” (Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times) combines a “formidable stage presence” (Seattle Times) with “a bass voice of splendid solidity” (Bernard Jacobson, Music Web International), making him one of the most appealing singing actors of the younger generation. He has collaborated with leading ensembles and conductors including Helmut Rilling, Sir Neville Marriner, John Nelson, Christoph Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques in such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Stuttgart’s Mozart-Saal, and the Frankfurt Alte Oper.

In the 2011–2012 season, Douglas made his European stage debut at Opéra de Nice singing the role of Orcone in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane; reprised in New York a role he premiered as a Tanglewood Fellow in It Happens Like This, a new stage work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Charles Wuorinen; and sang Compère in Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts with the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Apollo in Purcell's Apollo e Dafne for Pocket Opera.

In recent seasons he appeared as Laurence in Gretry’s Le Magnifique with Opera Lafayette in Washington D.C. and New York; sang the role of Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas and was a featured soloist in the acclaimed tour of Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Polyphemus), both with the Boston Early Music Festival; and made his European debut at Paris’s Salle Pleyel in Purcell’s King Arthur, with Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques.

A trained actor, Douglas’s “superb sense of drama” (The New York Times) is as apparent on the concert stage as it is in opera. Highlights include Handel’s Messiah with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led by British conductor Christopher Warren-Green; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Cathedral Choral Society; Bach’s St. John Passion with Christoph Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion for the Chicago Bach Project with John Nelson and Soli Deo Gloria.

Douglas has collaborated with conductors Bruno Weil, David Hoose, Manfred Schreier, Paul O’Dette, and Stephen Stubbs. He has appeared as a soloist with the Biava String Quartet, the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, Tanglewood’s Fromm Players, the Clarion Society of New York, Emmanual Music, the Yale Schola Cantorum, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the stage directors Gilbert Blin and Mark Morris.

Douglas’s recording of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché, with the Boston Early Music Festival was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording of 2008. His portrayal Jesus in Bach’s St. John Passion was called “astonishing” (Early Music Review), and his solos in Biber’s Vespers, were praised as “lively and sensitive” by Goldberg Magazine. Both recordings are by the Yale Schola Cantorum, conducted by Simon Carrington.

Douglas, a Connecticut native, received his formal musical training at the New England Conservatory, Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music where he was awarded the Hugh Porter Prize. He was a Fellow of the Carmel Bach Festival Adams Program and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Photo: Jesson Mata