Edwin Crossley-Mercer

In the young generation of French singers, Edwin Crossley-Mercer is an outstanding baritone discovery. He has already played in some of the most distinguished opera houses in Europe:

After having attended the Conservatory in the French town of Clermont-Ferrand, he went on to the ‘Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles’ and thence to Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and with Cesare Colona.

In 2007 he was an HSBC foundation award winner at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and won the 1st prize as best singer at the Lili and Nadia Boulanger International Voice Competition, Paris.

In March 2006, he took on the title role in Don Giovanni produced in Berlin, a role he also sang at the Dijon Opera last season in 2013. In March of the same year, he made his debut at the ‘Berliner Staatsoper Unter den Linden’, in Der Freischütz by Weber and in Doktor Faust by Feruccio Busoni conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

July 2009 marked his appearance at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Guglielmo in Cosi Fan Tutteunder the baton of Christophe Rousset.

In the course of the 2009-2010 season his venues included the DNO in Amsterdam,  (in La Juive by Fromental Halevy) and the Opéra Comique in Paris (in Béatrice et Bénédict by Hector Berlioz). He also appeared as Schaunard in La Bohème at the Komische Oper in Berlin. In the 2010-2011 season he made his Paris Opera stage debut by appearing as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss at the Opéra Bastille, where he was already re-engaged for roles in future seasons in Arabella, The Merry Widow, Carmen and Die Zauberflöte.

Edwin Crossley-Mercer has also numerous baroque repertoire performances throughout Europe and the USA to his credit. In the course of this season he played the role of Florestan in Amadis by Jean Baptiste Lully at the Opéra d’Avignon and the Opéra de Massy as well as Thésée from Hippolyte et Aricie by Rameau at the Beaune festival and has been performing the same part in the Royal Opéra de Versailles in February 2013.
It was also under Olivier Schneebeli’s baton that Edwin Crossley-Mercer has performed in two recordings on the K617 label: Les Motets by Charpentier and Arias and opera extracts written by Lully. In addition to the opera, Edwin performs consistently as a recitalist in venues such as  Dom Musiki in Moscow, Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra de Lille, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (Die Winterreise and Die Schöne Magelone), Saint Petersburg festival, Bayreuth, the Louvre Auditorium, Bad Kissingen and the Festival de Colmar and lately premiered the Carmina Catulli by Michael Linton at the Carnegie Hall in New-york. The recording shall be released next fall.

He appeared in Munich with the Bayerischer Rundfunkorchester (Munich Radio Orchestra. He sang the baritone solos in Brahms’  “Ein Deutsches Requiem” (Berlin Rundfunkchor – Hamburger Festspiele) and Faurés Requiem (Radio France & ONF – Paris).

In the course of the 2012-2013 season Mr. Crossley-Mercer performed a world premiere opera by Fénelon at the Grand Theatre de Genève in the part of Jean Jacques Rousseau in the world premier of the opéraJJR citoyen de Genève by Philippe Fénelon, staged by Robert Carsen. He sang Figaro in Le Nozze de Figaro accompanied by the LA Philharmonic Orchestra and under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, staging by Christopher Alden.

He also performed the roles of Dandini in La Cenerentola at the Opéra National du Rhin, Jupiter in Platée by J.P. Rameau at the Theater an der Wien, the Lincoln Center (New-York) and the Opera comique as the bass part in Messiah by Haendel, also at the Theater an der Wien (Vienna).

Jason Paul Peterson

Known for combining impeccable musicianship and technique with innovative and appealing programming, American concert pianist Jason Paul Peterson has captivated hundreds of audiences throughout North America and Europe. The Leipziger Volkszeitung in Germany referred to a recent concert as "a piano concert of a completely special sort... absolutely an exquisite experience." He has been described as "a national phenomenon" (The Milwaukee Journal) and a musician of "Technical brilliancy who conveyed all the nuances in performance" (Polonaise Magazine).

Recent concert highlights include performances in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Chicago Cultural Center, as well as recitals in Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, Basel, and countless other cities throughout North America and Europe. Two performances of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra drew more than 20,000 listeners, and his two solo recitals on the historic Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago were broadcast live nationwide via radio, internet, and cable television. Dr. Peterson recently performed an American-Soviet program in the Rathaus of Torgau Germany for the Elbe Festival, commemorating the meeting of Soviet and U.S. troops in 1945. He also presented a series of solo recitals in Switzerland featuring the music of Swiss composers, and will perform this music in Carnegie Hall in February 2015.

In great demand as a collaborative performer, Dr. Peterson has accompanied scores of artists, including flutist Marianne Gedigian (Boston Symphony), Vahn Armstrong (concertmaster, Virginia Symphony), Robert Spring (clarinetist), and David Small (baritone). In Switzerland, he has a piano duo with Antje Maria Traub and tours with the new music group Ensemble Spektrum. 

In 2014, Dr. Peterson gave the world premiere of composer Michael Linton's song cycle Catulli Carmina with world-renowned baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer in Carnegie Hall. The recording of the work, released in August 2014 on the Refiners Fire label, quickly climbed to third place on the iTunes Classical charts. Dr. Peterson has also released four solo CD's on the Sospiro label.

Often in demand as a teacher, Dr. Peterson’s students have gone on to study at top conservatories and win prizes in numerous competitions. He has taught at the Moulin d’Ande festival in France, the Blonay Chamber Music Camp near Lausanne, Switzerland, the Curso de Canto festival in Guadalajara, Mexico, and has lectured on the application of ancient Greek memory techniques to memorizing piano music at the World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia.

As a teenager, Dr. Peterson was awarded grants from the Chopin Foundation of the United States for four consecutive years. He is the winner of the 2006 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition and the only American finalist in the 2001 Grace Welsh International Prize for Piano. His recent performances of Swiss music have been supported by the Aargauer Kuratorium, the Peter Mieg Foundation, the Werner Wehrli Foundation, and the cities of Ennetbaden and Baden. 

A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Peterson studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar, Germany while completing his doctoral dissertation on the piano music of Georgy Enescu at the Peabody Conservatory. He also holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music. Dr. Peterson's principal teachers include Natalya Antonova, Anton Nel, Alexander Shtarkman, and Grigory Gruzman. He currently resides near Zurich, Switzerland and is a faculty member of the Kantonsschule Baden, having previously held a full-time faculty position at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Michael Linton

Composer Michael Linton teaches music theory (and some occasional history) to freshman and sophomore students at Middle Tennessee State University. Before coming to MTSU Linton taught in Connecticut and Minnesota and received training at Wheaton College (Illinois), the University of Cincinnati, Yale, and New York University, having studied with composers Krzysztof Penderecki, Lukas Foss, John Gilbert, T. Scott Huston and Bruce MacCombie. Linton, whose writings have appeared in the journal First Things, The Weekly Standard, and The Wall Street Journal, has twice held fellowships with the NEH. He is one of the founding members of Refinersfire, LLC and much of his music as well as his writings and lectures can be found on the company's site. A native of California, Linton lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with his wife Janet and their three daughters and miscellaneous stray animals.