Bass-baritone Nathan Halbur is an eclectic artist across many disciplines: singer, actor, composer, producer, and bandleader.
Stage 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).
Nathan previously worked with Mark Adamo in a workshop performance of the new opera Sarah in the Theatre at the New England Conservatory. He previously appeared with Odyssey Opera in its Gershwin double-bill (Of Thee I Sing and Let ‘Em Eat Cake) as Supreme Court Justice #6 and League of Nations delegate (from Norway). He also sang in the chorus of Argento’s The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe.
This season, he is Bion in Adamo’s Lysistrata (Odyssey Opera), Melisso in Handel’s Alcina (MassOpera), and covers the role of Colline in Puccini’s La bohème (Opera Maine).
As an actor, Nathan recently gave voice to 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 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.
He is a masterful interpreter of Bach, praised for his “nimble accounts of [Bach’s] melismas” (Boston Classical Review). He has sung numerous cantatas as a soloist with Emmanuel Music, and recently portrayed the roles of Judas and Pontifex in performances of the St Matthew Passion (Cantata Singers, Emmanuel Music). Later this year, he sings the St John Passion (Marsh Chapel Choir) and the Mass in B minor (Emmanuel Music).
Nathan also enjoys choral singing with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, and Ensemble Altera. He recently performed with Skylark at the Morgan Library alongside actress Christine Baranski, and he can be heard on Skylark’s GRAMMY-nominated album Clear Voices in the Dark.
As a composer, Nathan’s works have been performed throughout the United States. Recently, several pieces for voices and strings received world premieres at Boston’s Museum of Science (Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble). His music is currently featured in the exhibition an archive and/or a repertoire at SMFA at Tufts, as part of the installation Press and Sniff with artist Kledia Spiro (on display through April 20).
Nathan is an avid improviser. He produced Nightingale Vocal Ensemble’s fully improvised album Composition Sped Up, and directed the live show Photoplay (combining improvised music with experimental silent film) at The Brattle Theatre. He curates a monthly series of Exploratory Choral Meditations, probing the intersections of diverse art, improvised music, and social justice.
Nathan’s experimental band DREAMGLOW combines all of his wide-ranging artistic interests, demonstrated on the album mélo-fi, and in the recent Slumber Party tour, which culminated in a show at The Rockwell with dancer Cassie Wang and installation artist Yolanda He Yang.
