Bass-baritone Nathan Halbur is an eclectic singer, actor, composer, producer, and bandleader.
He is an active concert soloist, notably with the Boston Pops Holiday Singers every December since 2021, and in the Carnegie Hall world premiere of Heidi Breyer’s Amor Aeternus: A Requiem for the Common Man. Praised for his “nimble accounts of [Bach’s] melismas” (Boston Classical Review), he is a regular soloist with Emmanuel Music, including a recent B minor mass. He has portrayed Pilate in the St John Passion (Marsh Chapel), as well as Judas and Pontifex in performances of the St Matthew Passion (Cantata Singers, Emmanuel Music).
Onstage this season, he is Bion and First Geezer in Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata (Odyssey Opera), Melisso in Handel’s Alcina (MassOpera), and covers the role of Colline in Puccini’s La bohème (Opera Maine). He also collaborated closely with Mark Adamo in a workshop performance of the new opera Sarah in the Theatre at the New England Conservatory. Previous highlights include the world premiere of Wayne Shorter’s …(Iphigenia) with Esperanza Spalding, Britten’s The Burning Fiery Furnace (Enigma Chamber Opera), Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Boston Summer Opera), and soloist in a staged Fauré Requiem (Boston Choral Ensemble). As an actor, he inhabited Dr. Seuss’s Grinch with the Boston Pops, and “vividly narrated” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, paired with Carlo Gesualdo madrigals performed by Nightingale Vocal Ensemble.
Nathan has performed with Skylark Vocal Ensemble at The Met Cloisters, the Hispanic Society of America, and the Morgan Library (alongside actress Christine Baranski). He can be heard on Skylark’s GRAMMY-nominated album Clear Voices in the Dark, Ensemble Altera’s recent release Dazzling Light, and in concerts with the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque.
Nathan’s compositions for voices and strings received world premieres at Boston’s Museum of Science (Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble). His music was recently featured in the exhibition an archive and/or a repertoire at SMFA at Tufts, in a collaboration with artist Kledia Spiro and ten poets. An avid improvisor, Nathan produced Nightingale Vocal Ensemble’s album Composition Sped Up, and directed the live show Photoplay (combining improvised music with silent films) at The Brattle Theatre. He curates a monthly series of Exploratory Choral Meditations, probing the intersections of diverse art, sonic experimentation, and social justice. His band DREAMGLOW synthesizes his many artistic interests, as on the album mélo-fi and the recent Slumber Party tour, which culminated in a show at The Rockwell with dancer Cassie Wang and installation artist Yolanda He Yang.