Soloist Spotlight

Portsmouth Pro Musica is excited to work with these talented soloists for our upcoming concerts of the Brahm’s German Requiem!

Erin M. Smith – Soprano

Praised for her “rich and beautiful voice” (Petoskey News-Review), soprano Erin M. Smith is quickly establishing herself as a versatile and dynamic performer throughout New England. Erin has recently performed as a featured soprano soloist with the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra and numerous pops and operatic concerts with the Hillyer Festival Orchestra.

Favorite operatic performances include Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore with Opera Providence, Pamina in The Magic Flute with MetroWest Opera and Piccola Opera, Vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen with Boston Opera Collaborative, Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro with BayView Music Festival, Donna Elvira in an Educational Tour of Don Giovanni with Cape Cod Opera, and more. As an oratorio soloist with notable choruses and orchestras throughout New England, Erin has performed the soprano solos in Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore and Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Magnificat and Dixit Dominus, Telemann’s Machet die Tore Weit, and Faure’s Requiem. Erin has also performed numerous premieres of newly composed works and presented the Boston premier of Oliver Knussen’s Requiem: Songs for Sue with The Boston New Music Initiative chamber orchestra. Internationally, Erin has studied and performed in Italy and Austria.

Highlights of the 2017-2018 season include solo appearances in Handel’s Messiah with Chorus North Shore in December, Baroque concerts with The Falmouth Chorale and Concord Chorale, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor with Concord Chorale, Mahler Symphony No. 4 with The Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra, and Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with Portsmouth Pro Musica. Erin resides in Dover, NH with her husband, composer Tim Davis, and their two small children. For more information, please visit www.erinmsmithsoprano.com.

Paul Max Tipton – Bass-Baritone – performing in our April 13 & 15th performances

Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a dignified and beautiful singer, bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton enjoys an active career in opera, oratorio, and chamber music throughout North America, Europe, China, and Korea. He has recently appeared with the symphonies of San Antonio and Grand Rapids, with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and with the New York Philharmonic as part of their first-ever Bach Festival. He has sung with Bach Collegium Japan, Tenet (NYC), Blue Heron (Boston), and the Washington Bach Consort; in 2015 he debuted at Spoleto Festival USA and has appeared with Cut Circle (Palo Alto) at early music festivals in Maastricht, Antwerp, and Utrecht (2018).

He has collaborated with Matthias Pintscher, Ton Koopman, Kenneth Slowik, Leonard Slatkin, Simon Carrington, Helmuth Rilling, Rubén Dubrovsky, Nicholas McGegan, and Ricky Ian Gordon; soloed for Grant Llewellyn with the Handel and Haydn Society; and performed the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Martin Katz conducting. He recently recorded Nicolaus Bruhns’s solo cantatas for bass for the BIS label, and has appeared in recital with Masaaki Suzuki. Current operatic credits include the role of Archibald Grosvenor in Patience with Odyssey Opera and Plutone in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Göteborg Baroque in Sweden (2018).

Mr. Tipton trained on full fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Music in Ann Arbor, being mentored by mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee and tenor George Shirley. He is a graduate of the Yale University School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, having studied with tenor James Taylor. Based in Boston, he was made a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music in 2012. www.paulmaxtipton.com

Rob McGinness – Baritone – performing in our April 7th Concert

Baritone Rob McGinness has been praised by the Baltimore Sun for his impressive singing, supple phrasing and well-supported tone. Rob’s recent operatic performance include title roles in Eugene Onegin and Don Giovanni, as well as Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro. He has also sung Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Jules Goddard in Bolcom’s A Wedding, and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, a performance lauded for a “bright baritone and winning jitteriness” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Committed to promoting and performing new works, Rob regularly premieres new roles, notably Ed Wall in Frances Pollock’s award-winning opera Stinney, and as Saul Hodkin/Price in The Ghost Train by Paul Crabtree.

Rob’s concert credits include Carmina Burana with Columbia Pro Cantare, Durufle’s Requiem with both Oberlin College’s Musical Union and The Peabody Concert Orchestra and the bass soloist in Schubert’s Mass in G, with  concert Artists of Baltimore, a performance acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun’s Tim Smith for its “poetic warmth.”

Deeply invested in bringing new and engaging music to audiences, Rob premieres both his own and other new works. A composer himself, he wrote and premiered Apollo, an 11-part multimedia song cycle based on the Apollo 11 mission, created in collaboration with NASA. Apollo was premiered at IngenuityFest 2013 in Cleveland OH. He has written vocal, orchestral, theatrical, and choral works, including Dick Tracy for Andy’s Summer Playhouse in Wilton, NH, and The Tragedians an orchestral work performed by the Windham Orchestra in Vermont.

Rob has had the honor of working in master classes with Thomas Hampson, Marilyn Horne, Sherrill Milnes, Martin Katz, Graham Johnson, and John Musto. He has won awards and competitions including first place in Sylvia Greene Vocal Competition, second place in the Piccola Opera Competition, the Ruth Cogan Memorial Scholarship and the Margot Bos Stambler Award. Currently based in Baltimore, Rob performs regularly with local ensembles, and has upcoming engagements as a featured soloist including with Bel Cantanti Opera, Columbia ProCantare, and The Hopkins Symphony Orchestra. www.rob-mcginness.com