Brad Cresswell

Last updated
Brad Cresswell
Born
Chicago, Illinois
Occupation
Years active1990–present

Brad Cresswell is an American radio broadcaster and former opera singer who is currently based at WGTE-FM in Toledo, Ohio. [1] He is also the creator and host of Living American Composers: New Music from Bowling Green, a radio series sponsored by Bowling Green State University and syndicated internationally by The WFMT Radio Network. [2] Since 2012 he has hosted the popular Opera Quiz intermission feature heard during the international Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. [3]

WGTE-FM is a public radio station in Toledo, Ohio, and is the radio partner of Channel 30 WGTE-TV, Toledo's PBS network affiliate. It features news, talk, classical music, jazz and folk music. It also airs programs from National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Radio International (PRI).

Toledo, Ohio City in Ohio, United States

Toledo is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, at the western end of Lake Erie bordering the state of Michigan. The city was founded in 1833 on the west bank of the Maumee River, and originally incorporated as part of Monroe County, Michigan Territory. It was re-founded in 1837, after conclusion of the Toledo War, when it was incorporated in Ohio.

Ohio U.S. state in the United States

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Of the fifty states, it is the 34th largest by area, the seventh most populous, and the tenth most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus. Ohio is bordered by Pennsylvania to the east, Michigan to the northwest, Lake Erie to the north, Indiana to the west, Kentucky on the south, and West Virginia on the southeast.

Contents

Early life and opera career

Born in Chicago, Cresswell grew up in Moline, Illinois, where he sang in the Moline Boys Choir. His interest in music continued through high school, where he learned to play several instruments and also began composing. Cresswell subsequently attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa; the St. Louis Conservatory and School for the Arts, and Boston's New England Conservatory of Music. [4]

Chicago city and county seat of Cook County, Illinois, United States

Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,705,994 (2018), it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the US, with portions of the northwest city limits extending into DuPage County near O'Hare Airport. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland. At nearly 10 million people, the metropolitan area is the third most populous in the nation.

Moline, Illinois Place in Illinois, United States

Moline is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 43,977 in 2010, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois and the cities of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa. The Quad Cities have an estimated population of 381,342. The city is the ninth-most populated city in Illinois outside the Chicago Metropolitan Area. The corporate headquarters of Deere & Company is located in Moline, as was Montgomery Elevator, which was founded and headquartered in Moline until 1997, when it was acquired by Kone Elevator, which has its U.S. Division headquartered in Moline. Quad City International Airport, Niabi Zoo, Black Hawk College, and the Quad Cities campus of Western Illinois University-Quad Cities. Moline is a retail hub for the Illinois Quad Cities, as South Park Mall and numerous big-box shopping plazas are located in the city.

Illinois American State

Illinois is a state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It has the fifth largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth largest population, and the 25th largest land area of all U.S. states. Illinois has been noted as a microcosm of the entire United States. With Chicago in northeastern Illinois, small industrial cities and immense agricultural productivity in the north and center of the state, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, and is a major transportation hub. Chicagoland, Chicago's metropolitan area, encompasses over 65% of the state's population. The Port of Chicago connects the state to international ports via two main routes: from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois Waterway to the Illinois River. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois. For decades, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and, through the 1980s, in politics.

Cresswell made his professional debut in Richard Strauss's opera Elektra with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, a performance which was later released on Philips Records. [4] [5] He also performs the tenor solos in what The Penguin Record Guide calls a "unique recording" of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra under Benjamin Zander. The recording purports to use Beethoven's original tempo markings, which differ markedly from those normally heard in modern performance. [6]

Richard Strauss German composer

Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.

<i>Elektra</i> (opera) 1909 opera by Richard Strauss

Elektra, Op. 58, is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus on 25 January 1909. It was dedicated to his friends Natalie and Willy Levin.

Seiji Ozawa Japanese orchestra conductor

Seiji Ozawa is a Japanese conductor known for his advocacy of modern composers and for his work with the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is the recipient of numerous international awards.

Cresswell sang several premieres for both Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Santa Fe Opera, including Judith Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert . [7] [8] He also created the role of the poet John Lorimond in David Carlson's The Midnight Angel , to a libretto and original story by author Peter S. Beagle, which was commissioned by Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Glimmerglass Opera, and Sacramento Opera. [9] For Chicago Lyric Opera, Cresswell created a role in Anthony Davis' opera Amistad, based on the 1839 slave revolt aboard the Spanish schooner La Amistad. Cresswell appears in the original cast recording of Amistad under conductor Dennis Russell Davies on New World Records. [10]

Santa Fe Opera opera company in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located 7 miles (11 km) north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the Opera Association of New Mexico in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newly acquired former guest ranch of 199 acres (0.81 km2).

Judith Weir is a British composer and the first female Master of the Queen's Music.

The Vanishing Bridegroom is an opera by composer Judith Weir to a libretto by the composer from work edited by J. F. Campbell of Islay. Commissioned by the Glasgow District Council, the opera was premiered by the Scottish Opera as a part of the 1990 European Capital of Culture celebrations in Glasgow. The United States premiere of the opera was given by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 1992 with soprano Lauren Flanigan as the Bride/Wife/Mother.

Throughout the 1990s Cresswell performed regularly at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. [11] During this time, he also made important debuts with the New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington Opera, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. [4]

Lyric Opera of Chicago non-profit organisation in the USA

Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one of the major opera companies in the United States. The Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by the Lyric.

New York City Opera American opera company based in New York City

The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013, and again since 2016 when it was revived.

San Francisco Opera opera company based in San Francisco, United States, performing in the War Memorial Opera House

San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California.

Radio career

Soprano Patricia Racette with host Brad Cresswell during the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, 2012 Patricia Racette-and-Brad Cresswell.jpg
Soprano Patricia Racette with host Brad Cresswell during the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, 2012

During the early 2000s Cresswell joined the NPR affiliate in New York City, WNYC, as a music host and producer. At WNYC, Cresswell helped to create one of the first contemporary classical music services on the internet and HD radio, WNYC2. [12] He has also made guest appearances on the popular Public Radio programs Studio 360 and Radiolab . [13] [14] In 2007 Cresswell received the first ASCAP Deems Taylor Multimedia Award for his work on the online music festival 24 Hours and 33 Minutes, The Playful and Playable Cage. [15]

NPR US non-profit membership media organization

National Public Radio is an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization based in Washington, D.C. NPR differs from other non-profit membership media organizations, such as AP, in that it was established by an act of Congress and most of its member stations are owned by government entities. It serves as a national syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio stations in the United States.

WNYC is the trademark, and a set of call letters shared by a pair of non-profit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City and owned by New York Public Radio, a nonprofit organization that did business as WNYC RADIO until March 2013.

Studio 360 is an American weekly public radio program about the arts and culture hosted by novelist Kurt Andersen and produced by Public Radio International (PRI) and Slate in New York City. The program's stated goal is to "Get inside the creative mind" and uses arts and culture as a lens to understand our world. The program was created by PRI based on an identified need for programming dedicated and focused on arts and culture journalism in media. And while the show features regular guest interviews with authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem, and Miranda July, and musicians as diverse as Laura Veirs, Don Byron, and k.d. lang, it also has several recurring segments. The American Icons series attempts to understand lasting American cultural icons such as The Great Gatsby and Kind of Blue. The hour on Moby-Dick was the recipient of the 2004 Peabody Award. PRI and WNYC co-produced the show from 2000 to 2017, when Slate replaced WNYC. It is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Cresswell has written extensively for the Metropolitan Opera Radio channel on Sirius Satellite Radio. [1] He has also been a regular panelist for the popular Opera Quiz intermission feature heard during the Met's live Saturday matinee broadcasts. In 2012 Cresswell was named one of three revolving hosts for the Opera Quiz, which is broadcast by more than 300 stations worldwide. [3]

In 2009 Cresswell joined WGTE-FM in Toledo, Ohio as Music Director and Host. He currently hosts a daily program of classical music which includes occasional interviews with artists. He also produces concert broadcasts from the Toledo Symphony, and hosts a monthly live performance/talk show. [1]

At WGTE, Cresswell created a radio series called Living American Composers: New Music from Bowling Green, which is distributed by The WFMT Radio Network to more than 160 radio stations worldwide. [16] The program features music and commentary from contemporary composers, with performances coming from the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). Among the musicians frequently heard is Pulitzer and Grammy winning composer Jennifer Higdon, who is an alumna of BGSU. [17]

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Bowling Green State University public university in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States

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RNZ Concert

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Brad Cresswell". WGTE Public Media. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "Living American Composers: New Music from Bowling Green". WFMT Radio Network. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  3. 1 2 "WGTE's Brad Cresswell returns to the Metropolitan Opera Quiz". WGTE Public Media. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 "Brad Cresswell Biography". Archived from the original on 4 February 2005. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "Strauss: Elektra / Ozawa, Behrens, Ludwig, Hynninen, BSO". ArkivMusic. 30 October 1997. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "Zander's Beethoven Ninth Symphony". Benjamin Zander. Archived from the original on 2 June 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  7. ↑ Rothstein, Edward (1992), Review/Music; A Scottish Opera Has U.S. Premiere in St. Louis, The New York Times , retrieved 28 January 2015
  8. ↑ Holland, Bernard (1994), MUSIC REVIEW; A Judith Weir Opera In Which Truth Is Harmful to Health, The New York Times , retrieved 28 January 2015
  9. ↑ "North American Works Directory". Opera America. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "Amistad: Opera in Two Acts" (PDF). New World Records . Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  11. ↑ "Cast Lists - 1990 through 1999". Lyric Opera of Chicago . Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  12. ↑ "A New Voice: FM 91 Welcomes Brad Cresswell". WGTE Public Media. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  13. ↑ "Jack Handey: My Nature Documentary". WNYC . Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  14. ↑ "Radiolab: Sleep Deprivation". WNYC . Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  15. ↑ "40th Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards Announced". ASCAP . Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  16. ↑ Vallongo, Sally (2015), Locally produced series opens new season on FM 91, Toledo Blade , retrieved 29 January 2015
  17. ↑ Vallongo, Sally (2013), BGSU to produce classical music radio program, Toledo Blade , retrieved 29 January 2015
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