Richard Clement
Associate Professor Voice, TenorVoice Area Coordinator School of Music- Specializations
Voice and Opera: Voice
- Biography
Voice Area Coordinator
Grammy-winning American tenor RICHARD CLEMENT has performed with most of America’s major orchestras and music directors, bringing tonal beauty and superb musicality to repertoire from the baroque to the contemporary. He recently earned particular acclaim for the title role of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the North Carolina Symphony and Sacramento Choral Arts Society and Orchestra. In addition he premiered and recorded the Grammy nominated The Here and Now by Christoper Theofanides’ with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony, including performances in Atlanta and at New York’s Carnegie Hall (he has also sung Messiah and concert performances of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic with them). Among the most in-demand tenors for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, invitations include the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; New Jersey, Milwaukee, San Antonio, Oregon, Memphis, San Diego, Baltimore, Nashville, Phoenix, Colorado, Grand Junction, and Toledo Symphonies.
He has sung Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Memphis and Charlotte Symphonies; the Verdi Requiem with the the Baltimore, Santa Rosa and New Jersey Symphonies and Chautauqua Music Festival Orchestra; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa Canada; and Haydn’s The Creation with the Colorado and Puerto Rico Symphonies. In addition Mr. Clement has performed Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony and Boston Baroque with Martin Perlman; Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with Jeffrey Kahane and the Colorado Symphony and Leon Botstein and the American Symphony; Orff’s Carmina Burana with Neeme Järvi and the Detroit Symphony, the Grant Park Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and Cincinnati Symphony, and two Mozart programs with Boston’s Händel & Haydn Society under Grant Llewellyn.
He also sang Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht and Second Symphony “Lobgesang” with Kurt Masur and the Israel Philharmonic; Toch’s Cantata of the Bitter Herbs with the Czech Philharmonic (Recorded by the Milken Archiv); the Mozart Requiem with the Saint Louis and Delaware Symphonies; Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony; Aaron Kernis’s Millenium Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra; Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with Jeffrey Kahane Grammy-winning American tenor RICHARD CLEMENT has performed with most of America’s major orchestras and music directors, bringing tonal beauty and superb musicality to repertoire from the baroque to the contemporary. He recently earned particular acclaim for the title role of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the North Carolina Symphony and Sacramento Choral Arts Society and Orchestra. In addition he premiered and recorded the Grammy nominated The Here and Now by Christoper Theofanides’ with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony, including performances in Atlanta and at New York’s Carnegie Hall (he has also sung Messiah and concert performances of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic with them). Among the most in-demand tenors for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, invitations include the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; New Jersey, Milwaukee, San Antonio, Oregon, Memphis, San Diego, Baltimore, Nashville, Phoenix, Colorado, Grand Junction, and Toledo Symphonies.
He has sung Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Memphis and Charlotte Symphonies; the Verdi Requiem with the the Baltimore, Santa Rosa and New Jersey Symphonies and Chautauqua Music Festival Orchestra; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa Canada; and Haydn’s The Creation with the Colorado and Puerto Rico Symphonies. In addition Mr. Clement has performed Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony and Boston Baroque with Martin Perlman; Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with Jeffrey Kahane and the Colorado Symphony and Leon Botstein and the American Symphony; Orff’s Carmina Burana with Neeme Järvi and the Detroit Symphony, the Grant Park Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and Cincinnati Symphony, and two Mozart programs with Boston’s Händel & Haydn Society under Grant Llewellyn.
He also sang Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht and Second Symphony “Lobgesang” with Kurt Masur and the Israel Philharmonic; Toch’s Cantata of the Bitter Herbs with the Czech Philharmonic (Recorded by the Milken Archiv); the Mozart Requiem with the Saint Louis and Delaware Symphonies; Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony; Aaron Kernis’s Millenium Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra; Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with Jeffrey Kahane and the Santa Rosa Symphony; Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He has been guest soloist with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; Houston, Toronto, San Francisco and Cincinnati Symphonies, and collaborated with such conductors as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jesús López-Cobos, Bobby McFerrin, Daniel Harding, Christopher Hogwood, Carlo Rizzi, John Mauceri, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff, Donald Runnicles, and James Conlon.
Festival engagements include Tanglewood (concert performance of Act III of Verdi’s Falstaff), Beethoven Symphony #9 at both Grant Park and the Hollywood Bowl, and the Bach B Minor Mass with Seiji Ozawa at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival.
Mr. Clement’s considerable operatic credentials include Pedrillo in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Sir Colin Davis and the New York Philharmonic; Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at Belgium’s De Vlaamse Opera, City Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and recorded for WGBH Boston with the Springfiel Symphony. At the Vancouver Opera his roles include Nanki-Poo (The Mikado), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Little Bat (Susannah) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni); Ernesto (Don Pasquale) at Glimmerglass Opera; Vanya (Katya Kabanova) and To-No-Chujo (Tale of the Genji) at Opera Theater of St. Louis; Belmonte (Entführung) with the Boston Baroque; Lensky (Eugen Onegin) and Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) at Opera Festival of New Jersey; Candide, Lockwood (Wuthering Heights) and Fenton (Falstaff) at Boston Lyric Opera; and Albert Herring with the Atlanta Opera.
Mr. Clement studied voice at Georgia State University and the Cincinnati Conservatory, where he received his Master of Music degree. He was a Tanglewood Music Festival Fellow, has been a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and was a recipient of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Jacobson Study Grant. Recordings include Britten’s War Requiem with the Washington Choral Society, Bartók’s Cantata Profana with the Atlanta Symphony (both Grammy winners) and Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame. Mr. Clement is currently an Associate Professor at Georgia State University.