DONALD BARNUM, a baritone from Bethlehem, Pa. is active in both the operatic and concert fields. A graduate of Yale University, he then studied with Martial Singher at the Curtis Institute and received his Masters of Music degree from the Juilliard School. He made his solo debut with the New York City Opera as the Mandarin in Turandot, and sang with them for over ten years. He is presently a member of the Metropolitan Opera, and has sung with the Santa Fe, Glimmerglass, and other opera companies around the country, as well as Opera Metropolitana de Caracas in Venezuela. He was featured singing the baritone lead in Puccini’s Le Villi in New York’s Central Park with the New York Grand Opera. Lately, he has specialized in modern music, having done the U. S. premier of Harvey Sollberger’s Passages, and the world premier of Pulizer Prize winning composer Lewis Spratlan’s In Memoriam.
    Mr. Barnum has also sung the Lieder eine Fahrendes Gesellen with the Pioneer Valley Symphony, William Jennings Bryan in the Ballad of Baby Doe with the Indianapolis Opera, Tosca with Anton Coppola and the Bronx Arts Ensemble, several Mandarins in Turandot, including one with the National Grand Opera, and the baritone solos to Orff’s Carmina Burana, as well as the role of Tonio in I Paglacci for Opera Mobile. He also sang the baritone lead in Catalani’s La Wally for the New York Verismo Opera Company. Recently, he has sung Monterone in Rigoletto with the Indianapolis Opera, Alcindoro and Benoit in La Boheme and Count Capulet in Romeo et Juliette with the Cincinnati Opera, and Boris, Tristan, Oedipus Rex, Benvenuto Cellini, and Gotterdamnrung at the Metropolitan Opera. Last year, he celebrated his 50th anniversary of professional singing, and just has sung the bass solos in Mozart’s Requiem in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for the Cathedral Choral Society, and the Dvorak Stabat Mater with the Long Island Choral Society. He has just done the bass solos of the Bach B Minor Mass with them, as well as a recital of world premier songs of Brooklyn composer Julian Goodwin. Internationally, he has sung the baritone solo in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Yale Alumni Chorus in their tour of China.
    Mr. Barnum is also well known as a choral conductor, being the chorusmaster for the Schola Hebraeica, and prepared the New York Jewish Choral Ensemble for concerts in the eastern United States, as well as their debut at Royal Festival Hall, London. They have recorded for the Milken America Jewish Music project, and their CDs are now being released on the Naxos label. He has also prepared choristers for the National Grand Opera and the Center for Contemporary Opera, as well as for the World Premier of the Mass for the 21st Century, by Carman Moore, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York. This piece was repeated at Lincoln Center.
    He has prepared a recording, The Lord is My Light, of the choral and organ works of composer Joseph Roff, released in the spring of 1992, as well as preparing the choruses on the recordings of The Voice of Jewish Russia and Unto the Generations, and artistic assistant on a recording of the organ works of Brazilian composer, Amarl Vieira (b. 1952). He has been artist in residence at Brooklyn Technical High School, under the auspices of the National Chorale, and is now at Brooklyn High School for the Arts. He has been organist and choirmaster for several churches the New York metropolitan area, and had choirs chosen for Archdiocesan Choir Festivals.
    He is presently Organist and Director of Music of St. Charles Borromeo Church, Brooklyn Heights, and active in the preservation of its 1880, thirty-six rank Odell tracker-action organ. Last fall, he he released a recording of organ and choral music with the St. Charles Borromeo Choir. Last summer, he took the St. Charles soloists to Grenada for a benefit concert in June -- their second trip there -- and the choir to Canada in July. Mr. Barnum has also been Dean (i.e., President) of the Brooklyn Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and in his work with the Guild has arranged tours to Yale and New Haven to hear the great organs there and to visit the Odell Organ Company factory.. For years he has been noted for the grand, festive concerts he has put together on special occasions with combined choirs of several churches in the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill neighborhoods.