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 Distinguished American baritone Kurt Ollman first came to prominence singing Riff on the Deutsche Grammophon recording of West Side Story under Leonard Bernstein. He has since sung Pelléas at La Scala, Milan under Abbado and Don Giovanni in the original Peters Sellars production at Pepsico Summerfare and also appeared with the opera companies in Vienna, Rome, Brussels, Wexford, Santa Fe, Seattle, Washington, Los Angeles, New York City Opera. He has sung with the London Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre de Paris, Rome’s Accademia de Santa Cecilia, the New York Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and with the orchestras of Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Francisco, among many others.
A noted recitalist, Mr. Ollman studied the song literature with Gérard Souzay and Pierre Bernac and has made a specialty of the French and American classical song literature. He has appeared in recital at London’s Wigmore Hall and in Paris, Milan, Geneva, New York, Chicago and numerous other European and American cities. A champion of new American music he has premiered works by such composers as Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, Michael Torke, Richard Danielpour and Peter Lieberson. He was one of the original performers of the AIDS Quilt Songbook. Kurt Ollmann has recorded songs of Leguerney with Mary Dibbern for Harmonia Mundi, Roussel with Dalton Baldwin for EMI, Schumann with Michael Barrett for Koch, and song works of Rorem with the New York Festival of Song for New World Records and with the composer for Newport Classics.
Among his many other recordings are Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with Placido Domingo on BMG, Gershwin’s Oh, Kay! With Dawn Upshaw on Nonesuch, Bernstein’s Candide and West Side Story on DG, Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole under Previn and Pelléas et Mélisande on Opera d’Oro. He has also been featured in several PBS specials.
Born in Racine, Wisconsin, Mr. Ollman holds a Bachelor or Arts degree in Romance Languages and an honorary Doctorate in Music from Bowdoin College. Since 2002 he has been on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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