Matthew Valverde
Matthew Valverde, tenor, is a candidate for the degree of Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music, where he recently completed his Master of Music degree as a student of Kathryn Cowdrick. An avid concert soloist, Matthew has performed in Rochester and Ft. Worth including performances of Bach’s Magnificat and Johannes-Passion, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Mozart’s Requiem, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, and Britten’s War Requiem and is featured on the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s recording of Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music under Christopher Seaman for Harmonia Mundi.
Experienced on the opera stage, Matthew has been seen with the Eastman Opera Theater as Paolino in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, as Vašek in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, and as Sam in Weill’s Street Scene and has performed the role of Don José in Marius Constant’s adaptation of La Tragédie de Carmen with the TCU Opera Studio. Matthew participated in the 2012 Art Song Festival at Baldwin-Wallace College and the Marilyn Horne Foundation’s The Song Continues…2010 at Carnegie Hall.
Equally comfortable as choral singer and conductor, in 2007 and 2008, Matthew sang Bach’s Matthäus-Passion and Britten’s War Requiem with the Internationale Bachakademie’s Festival ensemble Stuttgart under Helmuth Rilling and holds a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Texas Christian University. Matthew prepared and conducted TCU choirs in Haydn’s Nelsonmesse and Poulenc’s Gloria. For the past three summers, Matthew served as festival choral director at the Clear Creek Music Festival in Halfway, Oregon. In 2013, he prepared and conducted the Clear Creek Festival Chorus in the world première of Blaise J. Ferrandino’s “The Wings of the Mountains.”
A recipient of Eastman’s 2012-13 Teaching Assistant Prize, Matthew has a passion for vocal pedagogy and teaching voice. He also teaches at Nazareth College, the Eastman School, and maintains a private studio. Upcoming performances include Handel’s Messiah with Symphoria in Syracuse this December and Ramirez’s Missa Criolla and Haazen’s Missa Luba with the Rochester Oratorio Society in March 2014.