Ivan Conrad, bass
Bass-baritone Ivan Conrad is an emerging music professional residing in New York City. Having earned a Master of Music in May from the Manhattan School of Music (MSM), he has performed over two dozen operatic roles in his career, including Colline in La Bohème, Zuniga in Carmen (Opera Southwest and NY Lyric Opera), Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor. Prince Gremin in Eugene Onegin, and Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte.
As a resident artist at Dicapo Opera Theatre in New York, Ivan performed the Father in the 20th century composer Vittoro Giannani’s setting of Beauty and the Beast in December, and Simone and Maestro Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi in January. Upcoming credits with the company include Alidoro in La Cenerentola (Cinderella), and the Judge in The Letter, which was originally commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera.
Ivan’s musical skills have lent themselves to contemporary opera where he has jump-started his career originating roles and working with living composers. Ivan recently performed in the world premiere of Rumpelstiltskin at the new Opera America Center with Empire Opera. He also covered Der Tod (Death) in Opera Moderne’s production of Der Kaiser von Atlantis, a satire composed in a concentration camp by Viktor Ullmann. At MSM, Ivan covered Reverend Winemiller in Summer and Smoke, working alongside the late composer Lee Hoiby. Also at MSM, Ivan performed in the ghost quartet of Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles in its first return to New York after its commission for the Metropolitan Opera’s Centennial. In April of 2011, the Festival Internazionale della Cultura in Bergamo, Italy invited him to sing both Battista and Vincenzo for the International Opera Theater’s new opera based on The Taming of the Shrew after singing the bass solo of Mozart’s Requiem the previous year alongside singers and musicians from Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy.
Last summer was spent preparing Le nozze di Figaro where Ivan shared the stage with Metropolitan Opera singers at Emerald City Opera (Colorado) as Bartolo, and covered Figaro. More recently, he performed Count Ceprano in Rigoletto with Long Island Opera Company, and will revisit the opera in Natchez, Mississippi as Count Monterone. He will also sing roles in Kiss Me Kate and Osvin in Billy Goat’s Gruff during April and May. He will then take up a Studio Artist position at Chautauqua Opera in upstate New York for the summer, covering Swallow in Peter Grimes, performing in the ensemble of Falstaff and singing recitals and opera scenes.
While opera is Ivan’s career path, he is no stranger to concert work, having made two appearances with the New York Philharmonic including Shostakovich’s memorial to the Holocaust victims at Babi Yar in a chorus of basses singing in Russian, and having sung the bass solo for 10 concert works with orchestras. These credits include the solo of the New York premiere of Garcia’s Requiem, Faure’s Requiem, and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. Ivan debuted with the New Mexico Philharmonic in December as the bass soloist for Handel’s Messiah, and will return as a soloist in February for Beethoven’s Mass in C.
On top of concert work, he has also taken tenure as the bass section leader of the choir at 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, after two years apiece at the Garden City Cathedral of the Incarnation in Long Island and St. John’s United Methodist Church in Albuquerque. Ivan has performed as a guest soloist for the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and for engagements with Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico, as well as the High Holy Day seasons at both Shir Ami Synagogue in Greenwich, CT, and Congregation Albert Synagogue in Albuquerque, NM.
During his graduate studies, Ivan represented MSM in outreach programs in neighboring public schools as a solo presenter introducing opera to children. He was also a part of the distance learning program with an interactive musical presentation via video conference to schools in the US and Canada.
An Albuquerque native, Ivan earned both a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of New Mexico. He is a proud distance member of the 505 young male a cappella chorus in Albuquerque, having co-founded and directed it for two years. The 505 is competing soon in Orlando for its fifth international competition, most recently earning 2nd place.
