Baritone Christopher O’Rear brings art songs and Broadway to Randolph

Baritone Christopher O’Rear will join Randolph professor and pianist Emily Yap Chua onstage at Randolph College later this month. 

The performance, scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 24, at 3 p.m. in Wimberly Recital Hall, will feature the art songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Juliana Hall, as well as as a selection of Broadway favorites. 

O’Rear, who serves on the voice faculty at the University of North Alabama as an assistant professor of voice and opera/music, will also teach a master class on Wednesday, Jan. 21, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. as part of his on-campus residency. 

He appears regularly as a soloist and clinician around the Southeastern United States and abroad, performing in recitals, opera, and oratorio. He has previously been a featured soloist at the Bassi Brugnatelli International Symposium for Conductors and Singers in Robbiate, Italy, where he performed his debut in Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah, sang as the featured soloist in Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem, and presented solo recitals.

On the operatic stage, he has starred as  Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, Tonio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Danilo Danilovitch in Lehár’s The Merry Widow, and Bud in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring. Among oratorio roles, he has been a featured soloist in productions of Bach’s St. John Passion and Magnificat, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs and Dona Nobis Pacem, and Benjamin Britten’s Cantata Misericordium.

O’Rear holds degrees from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, Samford University in Birmingham, AL, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Alabama. 

His Randolph performance is made possible through the generosity of The Edwin H. and Elaine Dahl St. Vincent Music Fund.