Biography

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Photo credit: Arthur Moeller

 

 

Tenor Nils Neubert was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, and maintains careers as a performer, educator, and scholar in the United States and abroad. He is a sought-after interpreter of song, oratorio, opera, and chamber music, and has appeared as a soloist and small ensemble singer throughout North America and Europe.

Particularly noted for his interpretations of the cantatas and oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as concert works by Händel, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, he has appeared with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Trinity Wall Street, American Classical Orchestra, Musica Sacra, Bach Vespers, TENET Vocal Artists, 4×4 Baroque Music Festival, Early Music Festival: NYC, Voices of Ascension, Berkshire Choral Festival, Princeton Pro Musica, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Sonoma Bach, Live Oak Baroque Orchestra, Circa 1600, Cappella Romana, Berkshire Bach Society, Academy of Sacred Drama, Ampersand, Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, Music Before 1800, Musical Oratory, Fairfield County Chorale and Orchestra, Master Singers of Westchester, Hudson Chorale, Choral Society of the Hamptons, Barnard-Columbia Chorus, New York University Chorus, Park Slope Singers, Queens College Choral Society, and Coro Lirico NJ.

As a recitalist and chamber musician, his repertoire encompasses many of the major German song cycles, as well as programs in French, Italian, English, and Russian. He has appeared with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Opera Grand Rapids, Art Song Preservation Society of New York, Russian Chamber Art Society, The German Forum, Festival Chamber Music, American Landmarks Festivals, Diderot String Quartet, di.vi.sion, The Colonials, Schubert & Co., Musica Reginae, Alfred Schnittke Akademie International, the United Jewish Appeal, and Amnesty International, and at number of noted national and international music festivals including the Summit Music Festival, Beethoven Institute at Mannes, Cello Plus Chamber Music Festival, Alberta Chamberfest, International Academy of Music (Italy), and Puigcerdà and Burgos International Music Festivals (Spain). He is a founding member of New York’s Polydora Ensemble, which specializes in 19th to 21st century repertoire for vocal quartet and piano.

His operatic repertoire ranges from principal tenor roles of Mozart, Rossini, and Donizetti to well- and lesser- known works of the Baroque; from operetta to modern and contemporary works, some of which he premiered, with such organizations as Geneva Light Opera, Pocket Opera New York, Liederkranz Opera Theatre, Encompass New Opera Theater, Sinfonia New York, Underworld Productions, New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera, Amore Opera, Vari Musicisti, Opera Company of Brooklyn, and Cutting Edge Concerts.

Nils Neubert has sung several world- and American premieres by, and/or collaborated with, composers including Jon Andrews, Gavin Bryars, Justine F. Chen, Gerald Cohen, Robert Cuckson, Reiko Füting, Michael Grossmann, Jonathan Howard Katz, Lowell Liebermann, Ting-Chun Lin, Chris Malloy, Hiroki Mori, John Musto, Harry Stafylakis, Roger Steptoe, Scott Wheeler, Red Wierenga, and Theodore Wiprud, and with such organizations as the Locrian Chamber Players, Brooklyn New Music Collective, Rhymes with Opera, GC Composers Alliance, and The James Joyce Society, NY.

Nils Neubert was a first prize winner in the 2010 Barry Alexander International Vocal Competition, and a winner in the 2009 Friday Woodmere Competition. He was also a grant recipient in the 2010 Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, and a finalist in the Liederkranz Foundation Vocal Competition, the Oratorio Society of New York’s Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition, and the American Prize.

Original writings, reviews, and educational sound materials, as well as translations into English and German have been published by Bärenreiter, Brill, Henle, Oxford University Press, Rowman & Littlefield, the International Concertina Association, the Journal of Singing, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, and Music Education Research. His dissertation on the song composer Max Kowalski (1882–1956) was nominated for the Barry S. Brook Award, and he can be heard on Voices in the Wilderness: Music of the Ephrata Cloister (Christopher Dylan Herbert [dir./prod.], Bright Shiny Things, 2020).

Nils Neubert teaches at The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, and served for seven summers as language coach at the Music Academy of the West. He joined the Glimmerglass Festival and the Wolf Trap Opera Company in that same capacity in 2020 and 2022, respectively, and the music staff at the Metropolitan opera in 2022, where he also began coaching for the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in 2023. He has done German and Latin language preparation for soloists, opera and choral ensembles, conductors, actors, and record producers, has been a regular guest instructor for the Potomac Vocal Institute in Washington, D.C., and has led master classes and workshops across the United States, as well as in Europe and Canada. In 2023, he helped prepare performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Musica Sacra and the New York Philharmonic. Previously, he served on the faculties of the Mannes School of Music, William Paterson University, Kaufman Music Center, and the Music Conservatory of Westchester. He is the current president (2022-2024) of NATS-NYC and has served on the University Faculty Senate at the New School.

Nils Neubert holds degrees from the Juilliard School (BM, Voice), Teachers College, Columbia University (MA, Music and Music Education [Voice Pedagogy]), and the CUNY Graduate Center (DMA, Performance). He also trained at the Mozarteum, Bel Canto at Caramoor, the Scuola Leonardo Da Vinci, the UMass Amherst Arts Extension Service, the FernUniversität Hagen, and the Harvard Extension School, and is an alumnus of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. He is a student of Dr. Robert C. White, Jr., and is married to concert pianist and pedagogue Yuri Kim.