Artist Biographies

The musical complicity of LES VOIX HUMAINES has been compared to the skill of two trapeze artists or the telepathic communion of a pair of jazz saxophonists. Susie Napper and Margaret Little, the two gambists of Les Voix Humaines, have been thrilling audiences worldwide with dashing performances of early and contemporary music for viols since 1985. They are renowned for their spectacular arrangements of a wide variety of music for two viols and have become a world reference for the music of Sainte-Colombe. Les Voix Humaines has recorded over thirty discs, including the complete Poeticall Musicke of Tobias Hume, The 4 Seasons of Christopher Simpson, and the complete Concerts a deux violes esgales by Sainte-Colombe, which have received critical acclaim and numerous prestigious awards such as the DIAPASON D’OR and Choc du Monde de la Musique. Les Voix Humaines has invited prestigious artists to join them in concert and recordings, such as Wieland and Barthold Kuijken, Charles Daniels, Suzie LeBlanc, Rinat Shaham, Matthew White, Eric Milnes, Skip Sempe, and Stephen Stubbs. The duo is regularly joined by some of Montreal’s finest young gambists to form the Voix Humaines Consort of Viols, which specializes in the vast 17th-century repertoire for viol consort and presents joint projects with Les Voix Baroques, a vocal ensemble led by Matthew White. The duo has toured in North America, Mexico, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel, performing at prestigious festivals such as Early Music Vancouver, the Festival Internacional Cervantino, the Brighton International Music Festival, the Festival Oude Musiek, Holland, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Summer Festivities of Early Music in Prague, and the Israel Festival.

An extraordinarily gifted Canadian lyric tenor, COLIN BALZER has combined assured musicality with the communicativeness and varied tonal palette of a lieder specialist, and is fast becoming one of the most sought-after concert soloists of his generation. Based in Germany, Mr. Balzer has enjoyed critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, performing a repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Penderecki with such conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Simone Young, Simon Preston, Yoav Talmi, Gabriel Chmura, and Christof Perick. He has performed with the Hungarian and Polish National Radio Orchestras; Stuttgart Philharmonic; the Oregon, Vancouver, and Quebec Symphonies; and the Boston Early Music Festival’s productions of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow (2005) and Lully’s Psyché (2007). Particularly esteemed as a recitalist, Mr. Balzer has been welcomed at London’s Wigmore Hall (accompanied by Graham Johnson); the Britten Festival in Aldeburgh; the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival; the Wratislavia Cantans in Poland; and the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Recordings to date include Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch and Eisler and Henze song anthologies. He is a prizewinner of Holland’s ’s-Hertogenbosch Competition; the U. K.’s Wigmore Hall Song Competition; the Stuttgart, Germany’s Hugo Wolf Competition; and Munich’s 55th International ARD Competition. Mr. Balzer also holds the rare distinction of earning the Gold Medal at the Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau with the highest score in 25 years. Upcoming performances include concerts throughout Germany with the Munich Bach Choir; Bach cantatas with Early Music Vancouver; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Leipzig Baroque Orchestra; Handel’s Messiah with Toronto’s Tafelmusik and the Victoria Symphony; Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Quebec Symphony; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on a European tour with Spain’s Al Ayre Espagnol ensemble; and Handel’s Chandos Anthems in France, Germany, and Poland with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre.

Acadian-born soprano SUZIE LEBLANC lives in Montreal and has spent much of her career specializing in Baroque repertoire. She has worked with many of the world’s leading ensembles in concert and opera performances as well as on film and on disc. Concerts have taken her to festivals in Beaune, Boston, Vancouver, London (BBC Proms, Spittalfields), Dresden, Bremen, Potsdam, Montreal, Orford, Lanaudière, Domaine Forget, the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Wigmore Hall, and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. On the opera stage, she has performed in Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Poppea for l’Opéra de Montréal and Festival Vancouver as well as Caldara’s La Conversione di Clodoveo for Montreal Baroque, Early Music Vancouver, and in Berlin. She can be seen on film in “More than a thousand kisses” (Bach’s Coffee Cantata) and “Suzie LeBlanc and a man named Quantz,” both for Prometheus Productions. In recent seasons, she recorded Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (as Pamina) with La Petite Bande (Bayer records) and Mozart lieder with Yannick Nézet-Seguin (ATMA) and returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion as staged by Jonathan Miller. Her passion for the music of her native Acadia led her to complete a documentary called “A Song Quest” directed by Donald Winkler and two recording of Acadian songs (La Mer Jolie and Tout passe) on the ATMA label. Other recent recordings include Lully’s Thésée (CPO); Gluck’s Orphée (Naxos); Buxtehude motets with Emma Kirkby, Peter Harvey, and the Purcell Symphony (Chandos); and A Handel Portrait (ATMA). Highlights in the coming season include recitals with pianist Robert Koortgard (French melodies); Mozart and Bach arias with the Victoria Symphony; a concert with Il Giardellino (Italy); Messiah with the Toronto and Detroit Symphony Orchestras; and Fauré’s Requiem with l’Orchestre Métropolitain directed by Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Ms. LeBlanc will be recording songs by Messiaen for the ATMA label to be released in 2008, and she recently took on her first role as an actress to play the lead character in Rodrigue Jean’s next film, Lost Song, which will be released in the spring of 2008.

Baritone NATHANIEL WATSON is a versatile artist who has performed successfully in a wide variety of musical styles. He has sung with most of the leading early music ensembles of North America as well as more mainstream symphony orchestras, and has some 35 operatic roles in his repertoire; highlights include Der Freischütz with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Colin Davis and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Kurt Masur and with Sir Roger Norrington in the conductor’s début concert in America in Carnegie Hall. Mr. Watson appeared in the title role in the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Cavalli’s Ercole amante (1999) in Boston, at Tanglewood, and at the Utrecht Festival in Holland, and was featured in the Salzburg Festival production of the Weill’s Mahagonny. He has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Tokyo, Seattle, Santiago de Chile, Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. His recordings include Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic; Scarlatti’s Agar et Ismaele esiliati with Seattle Baroque; Bach Passions with Eric Milnes; St. Matthew Passion with Jeffrey Thomas and the American Bach Soloists; Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea with Les Boréades de Montréal on the ATMA label; music by the American composers Samuel Barber, Philip Glass, Andrew Imbrie, and Claudio Spies; and premieres of works by Claudio Spies, Miriam Gideon, Scott Lindroth, Ronald Perera, Lewis Spratlan, Chan Ka Nin, and Earl Kim. Mr. Watson has been the baritone soloist in Ruth Fazal’s recent work, Oratorio Terezin, which has been performed now in six countries, including Israel, and in Carnegie Hall; he will appear in this work again in Montreal in May, 2008. A graduate of the Eastman School and the Yale School of Music, Mr. Watson currently resides in Montreal, teaches yoga, and has ridden his bike across the USA twice.

CATHERINE WEBSTER, soprano, is engaged regularly with many leading early music and chamber ensembles in North America. Deemed one of the finest rising young singers of Baroque repertoire, she has appeared as a soloist with Tafelmusik, Tragicomedia, Theatre of Voices, Netherlands Bach Society, American Baroque Orchestra, Magnificat, Musica Angelica, El Mundo, Four Nations Ensemble, Ensemble Masques, Les Voix Baroques, Early Music Vancouver, and in the Berkeley, Montreal, and Boston Early Music Festivals. Active also in contemporary music, Ms. Webster has appeared with The Kronos Quartet in Terry Riley’s Sun Rings and with Theatre of Voices and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in John Adam’s Grand Pianola Music. She is a frequent collaborator with Baroque opera directors Stephen Stubbs and Paul O’Dette, appearing under their direction in Festival Vancouver’s production of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea and the premiere of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow for the Boston Early Music Festival. She has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Musica Omnia, Analekta, and ATMA. Ms. Webster holds a Master’s in Music from the Early Music Institute at Indiana University and has been a guest faculty member and artist for The San Francisco Early Music Society’s summer workshops and the Madison Early Music Festival. She now resides in Montreal.

Countertenor MATTHEW WHITE was born in 1973 and began singing as a treble with St. Matthew’s Men and Boys Choir in Ottawa, Canada. Operatic engagements include work with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Cleveland Opera, Opera Atelier, and Pacific Opera Victoria. On the concert stage he has worked with groups including Bach Collegium Japan, Collegium Vocale Ghent, Le Concert Spirituel, Nederlands BachVereniging, Tafelmusik, Les Violons du Roy, Ensemble Arion, Concerto Palatino, Le Parlement de Musique, Oregon Bach Festival, Carmel Bach Festival, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Capella Brugensis, Israel Camerata, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Portland Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, and the Edmonton Symphony; he has also appeared at the Vancouver, Boston, Brugges, and Utrecht Early Music Festivals. Mr. White is the programming director for Montreal’s Les Voix Baroques, and has recorded for Analekta, ATMA, Channel Classics, CBC records, ASV, BIS, Naxos, Glossa, and Harmonia Mundi. His recording entitled Elegeia won a 2004 Cannes Classical Award for best new early music solo recording, and his 2004 recording of Italian Oratorio Arias with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra received a Juno Award nomination for best new Canadian classical solo recording. Soon to be released recordings include Funeral Cantatas with Collegium Vocale Ghent under Phillipe Herreweghe; Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Netherlands Bach Societ; Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri with Les Les Voix Humaines; a “Song of Songs” program with Les Voix Baroques; a solo recital of English music; a recital of Scottish music with La Nef; and Bach Cantatas Volumes 3 and 4 with Bande Montreal Baroque. Upcoming engagements include an extensive European tour of Bach Cantatas with Collegium Vocale Gent; a Japanese and European tour of Bach’s St. John Passion with the Netherlands Bach Society; St. Matthew Passion with the Netherlands Bach Society; Bach’s Magnificat with Les Violons du Roy; Messiah at the Ambronay Festival in France with Pierre Cao and Arsys Bourgogne; Bach Cantatas with Gli Angeli in Geneva; Messiah with the Calgary Symphony, Tafelmusik, and Kitchener Waterloo Philharmonic; La Resurrezione for Festival Vancouver; Bach Cantatas with Montreal Baroque; and extensive concerts with Les Voix Baroques throughout North America.

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