Gregory Servant
Chair
Voice, Voice Pedagogy, Opera Workshop
BMus (Dalhousie), MMus, DMA: Hartt, Artist Diploma (Opernhaus Zurich)
Email: Gregory.Servant@dal.ca
Phone: (902) 494-3738
Office: Studio 103 Dalhousie Arts Centre
Biography: Dr.Gregory Servant is currently the Chair of the Department of Music and Professor of Voice/Vocal Pedagogy. He is also past director of the department's annual Opera Workshop.
Gregory Servant enjoys a distinguished career as soloist in opera, oratorio and recital. He is an alumnus of the Zurich International Opera Studio and holds the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Hartt College of Music of the University of Hartford . Dr. Servant is a former winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New England. He was chosen by Gian Carlo Menotti to sing the role of Mr. Kofner in The Consul for the premier season of Spoleto Festival USA. That season, he also sang Mahler's Ruckert Lieder under Gerard Schwartz.
In March of 1999, Dr. Servant made his New York recital debut in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in a performance of Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. A CD of the complete work has been released on the GKS Label.
Dr. Servant has performed more than 50 operatic roles throughout the United States and Canada with, among others, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Kansas City Lyric Opera, the New Jersey State Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Wilmington Opera, the Bronx and New York Lyric Opera and Connecticut Opera. At Philadelphia's Academy of Music, he sang the title role in Boito's Mefistofele. His New York operatic debut was in the role of Timur in a concert version of Turandot at Avery Fisher Hall under the auspices of Licia Albanese's Puccini Foundation. With the Savannah Symphony, Dr. Servant was the baritone soloist for a PBS nationally televised performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Locally, the bass-baritone has sung often with the Dalhousie Chorale, including the roles of Boris and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger in concert with Symphony Nova Scotia, and as bass soloist in last season's Verdi Requiem. He debuted with Opera Nova Scotia in the title role of Verdi's Falstaff and at the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown he sang the role of Elijah. Last season he gave a lecture recital on Schubert Lieder for the King's College Clementi-Humanities Series, and this season he sung as bass soloist for Dvorak's Requiem with the Seton Cantata Choir.
Gregory Servant performed with the acclaimed Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestre as the baritone soloist in Bach's Magnificat at the Scotia Festival of Music. Under the late Georg Tintner and Symphony Nova Scotia he sang the Bach solo cantata No. 56, Ich will den Kreuzstaub gerne tragen. An accomplished recitalist, Dr. Servant performs often in the Dalhousie Chamber Music Series, Recent performances include Rachmaninoff Songs, Schubert's Winterreise and Schumann's Myrten.
