Biographies • Mozart's Requiem •

Brian Thorsett

Tenor

Hailed as “a strikingly gifted tenor, with a deeply moving, unblemished voice” (sfmusicjournal.com), and “a brilliant tenor, his voice plangent and supremely expressive” (FanFare), tenor Brian Thorsett excels in opera, oratorio and recital across the world. Since taking to the stage, Brian has been seen and heard in over 100 diverse operatic roles, ranging from Monteverdi to Britten, back to Rameau and ahead again to works composed specifically for his talents. As a concert singer Brian fosters a stylistically diversified repertoire of over 300 works, which has taken him to concert halls across the US and Europe. An avid recitalist, Brian is closely associated with expanding the vocal-chamber genre and has been involved in premieres and commissions of Ian Venables, Hilary Tann, David Conte, Gordon Getty, Christopher Stark, Stracy Garrop and Shinji Eshima, among many others. His dedication to this project has resulted in over 200 new works in the past 10 years, nearly all of which have been published as well as performed by renowned artists across the globe. Brian has also been heard in recordings, commercials and movies as the voice for SoundIron’s library Voice of Rapture: Tenor. His numerous recordings have been well-received by BBC Music Magazine, Rolling Stone, Musical Opinion Quarterly, FanFare Among his CD/Digital releases are song cycles of David Conte (Everyone Sang), Nature, Love and Death - an album of orchestral song cycles for tenor (Conte, Stilwell and Choate) on Arsis, Scott Gendel’s Barbara Allen, Daron Hagen’s Rapture and Regret (American Record Guide “Must Have List” January/February 2023), Splendid Tears - song cycles by Somervell, Lehmann and Madue White sponsored in part by the Vaughan Williams Trust, chamber music for tenor - October Skies and a Christmas Album with New Trinity Baroque. He is a graduate of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artist program, American Bach Soloists’ Academy, the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at Aldeburgh, England and spent two summers at the Music Academy of the West. Brian is currently Associate Professor of Voice at the School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech, where he has seen his students go on to do diverse things such as major graduate and training programs, premiere major new works by renowned composers, sing at venues like the Metropolitan Opera and off-Broadway, produce award winning hip-hop albums, and, most importantly, serve as valuable members of the music education community (www.brianthorsett.com)

Hayden Keefer

Baritone

Hayden Keefer, bass, is thrilled and honored to be returning to his alma mater! After receiving a B. A. from Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts in 2017, Hayden has been a musician based in his hometown, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Here he has flourished in the music scene as both a professional singer and music educator. Professional credits include soloist and ensemble roles regularly with local professional groups such as The Pittsburgh Camerata, Pittsburgh Opera, The Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh (alongside the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra), Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and Shadyside Presbyterian Church’s esteemed Chancel Choir. Continuing his education, Hayden has received an M.M degree from Duquesne University as well as Certificates from Carnegie Mellon University in both Vocal Performance and Music Technology/Sound Recording. Some recent favorite roles include cross-dressing as Mother in a local production of Kurt Weil’s Seven Deadly Sins, puppeteering Bumble the Bee and Dragon “Burnhilde” in a choose-your-own-adventure children’s opera The Enchanted Forest, and portraying Argante from Handel’s Rinaldo through the lens of a D&D game that starts in an '80s basement and portals to another dimension! Other roles took him to the screen with COVID-friendly productions as Achilla in Sartorio’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Somarone in Belioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict. Hayden considers himself lucky to be an educator in music with local outreach productions as well as his private piano and voice studio at Pittsburgh’s Winchester Thurston School. From performing, outreach, and education, the pursuit of music is a lifelong journey in fulfillment that Hayden continues to be grateful to this day. He still much appreciates his professors at Virginia Tech’s music program who helped cultivate his journey at the beginning, particularly his former voice professor, Ariana Wyatt, choral director Dwight Bigler, production professor Micheal Dunston, and piano professor Richard Masters. Hayden also must thank his family for their continual love and support.

Mathias Elmer

Director of Orchestral Activities

Mathias Elmer, a native of Switzerland, is the Director of Orchestral Activities and Assistant Professor of Music at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Prior to this position, he served as Director of Orchestral Activities at Connecticut College in New London and at the University of Memphis Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music. In 2017, he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting at the University of Memphis under Maestro Pu-Qi Jiang. Further studies in conducting led Dr. Elmer to Michael Stern (USA), Karl Anton Rickenbacher and Johannes Schlaefli (Switzerland), and Mark Ensley (USA), among others.

Elmer received his master’s degree in orchestral and operatic conducting at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts School of Music in Switzerland under Maestro Ralf Weikert. Elmer was Music Director of the Orchestra con brio in Glarus, Switzerland, a post he held for eight years. Between 2002 and 2014, he served as founding member and trumpet player of the professional brass quintet Philharmonic Brass Zurich–Generell5. Throughout Switzerland, Elmer is sought after as a wind band festival adjudicator, and from 2009 to 2014, he taught for the Zurich Music Association as a member of the conducting faculty.

Together with his colleague Kevin Sütterlin, Elmer is Co-Music Director and founder of Sinfonietta Memphis, a Tennessee-based chamber orchestra focusing on historically informed performances of music by Viennese Classical composers. Another focus of his work as a conductor is his passion for works by underrepresented composers, and he has led seminars and given lectures on how to incorporate this repertoire into a University orchestra concert program. Elmer has performed music by Florence Price, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, Louise Farrenc, as well as pieces by living American composers, including Scott Hines from Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Elmer is the winner of The American Prize in Conducting in the College/University Orchestra division for 2017/2018.

Dwight Bigler

Professor and Director of Choral Activities

Dwight Bigler has directed the choirs at Virginia Tech since 2009. Past positions include director of choral activities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and assistant conductor and pianist of the Dale Warland Singers. He has guest conducted and led workshops for high schools and universities across the country and internationally.

As a composer, he has published works with Oxford University Press, Hinshaw, Walton, and Alliance Music Publishers. Bigler is a 2015 recipient of the Excellence in Research and Creative Scholarship Award from the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, a 2011 winner of the National Collegiate Choral Organization Choral Music Series publication contest, and a recipient of two Barlow Endowment for Music Composition grants.