Celebrated countertenor Andreas Scholl opens Bates concert season

Andreas Scholl, regarded as one of the world’s finest countertenor singers, performs at Bates at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is $15, available at batestickets.com. A limited number of free tickets will be available for students and seniors at bit.ly/oacbates. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

The performance opens the 2014-15 concert series at Bates. Other highlights from the autumn include: the Metropolis Ensemble, Oct. 2; jazz pianist Gerald Clayton, Oct. 3; pianist Frank Glazer on Oct. 10 (Beethoven sonatas) and Nov. 7; jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, Oct. 19; and renowned classical pianist Richard Goode on Dec. 5. Learn more.

An increasing presence in American music, a countertenor is a male vocalist who sings in the pitch range more typically associated with the alto. The style emerged in the 1600s, fell from favor during the 19th century and has enjoyed a powerful resurgence since the mid-20th century.

Accompanied by keyboardist Tamar Halperin, Scholl performs a program of music by John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Haydn, Robert Johnson, Purcell, Schubert, Mozart and Brahms at Bates.

Few singers “can equal the sheer beauty of tone and dramatic instinct displayed by Andreas Scholl,” wrote Rebecca Franks in a BBC Music Magazine review of Scholl’s 2010 collection of music by Purcell titled O Solitude (Decca).

“Scholl understands the importance of words and remains the countertenor of choice; it’s not so much the intelligence and grace that make his artistry so instantly recognizable, as the hypnotically soothing quality of his voice which, even after 15 years at the top, remains in peak condition,” wrote the Financial Times of London in 2011.

Scholl was born in Germany and received his initial musical training as a member of a boys’ choir, the Kiedricher Chorbuben. He went on to study singing at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with René Jacobs and Richard Levitt, later succeeding the latter in his teaching post there.

Scholl performs in the world’s leading concert halls and festivals. He has sung with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Dresdner Philharmonie and the Akademie fuer Alte Musik Berlin.

He made his operatic debut in 1998 at Glyndebourne, performing the part of Bertarido opposite Anna Caterina Antonacci in Handel’s Rodelinda, in a hugely successful production repeated in 1999 and 2002. Scholl has also shared opera stages with Cecilia Bartoli and Renee Fleming.

While emphasizing Baroque repertoire, Scholl’s extraordinary recording catalog on Decca, Harmonia Mundi and Deutsche Grammophon ranges in era and style from classical arias to English and American folk songs to a collection of lute and consort songs. His newest recording is a collection of Bach cantatas for solo alto, performed with the Collegium Vocale Gent in a 2014 Harmonia Mundi release.