John Brancy
Grammy Award-winning baritone John Brancy is known for his intense musicality and communicative power. Hailed by the New York Times as “a vibrant, resonant presence,” Mr. Brancy is equally at home in staged opera, concert performance, and recital, with a wide-ranging repertoire that includes classical, contemporary world premieres, and musical theater. This month, Vocal Arts DC in collaboration with Avie Records will release The Journey Home: Live from the Kennedy Center which presents Mr. Brancy and pianist Peter Dugan in a recital program inspired by the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I and features musical selections from Schubert's Der Wanderer, Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel, as well as popular tunes and art songs by composers and poets who died in the war. The recital was also filmed and will air on the new PBS app AllArts TV over Memorial Day. Next Mr. Brancy will sing and record selections from Hanns Eisler's Hollywooder Liederbuch with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles to be streamed in June. Mr. Brancy recently joined forces with Tony Award–winning composer Adam Guettel to create a short film titled “Medusa” as part of his song cycle Myths and Hymns, produced by MasterVoices, which has also featured artists Dove Cameron, Renée Fleming, and Cheyenne Jackson. Due to the pandemic, cancelled appearances have included Puccini’s Messa de Gloria with the Rundfunkchor Berlin in Milan and Stuttgart with conductor Simon Halsey as well as a new work by Michael Gandolfi with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with scheduled performances at Jordan Hall and Tanglewood which would have marked Mr. Brancy's debut at the festival.

In the 2019-20 season, Mr. Brancy made his San Francisco Opera debut as Donald and covered the title role in Britten’s Billy Budd; appeared as the baritone soloist in Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem with Opera National de Bordeaux; returned to the role of Steward in Jonathan Dove’s Flight for a production with Pacific Opera Victoria; sang a recital with the New York Festival of Song; performed Handel’s Messiah for the United States Naval Academy and The Florida Orchestra; and was in Residency at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity.

Recent season highlights include a debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a new production of Meredith Monk’s ATLAS conducted by Paolo Bortolameolli and directed by Yuval Sharon; a role debut as Mercutio in Romeo et Juliet with the Gulbenkian Orchestra Choir directed by Vincent Huguet and conducted by Lorenzo Viotti in Lisbon; a return to Oper Frankfurt for a new production of Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway conducted by Karsten Januschke; singing orchestrated selections from Schubert's Winterreise with the Edmonton Symphony; a national tour of his critically acclaimed programs A Silent Night: A WWI Memorial in Song and Armistice: The Journey Home with internationally renowned pianist and collaborator Peter Dugan at Alice Tully Hall, Stanford University, West Point Academy, the Smithsonian Institute, the United States Naval Academy, Arizona Opera, and the Kennedy Center; performances of Handel’s Messiah with the Victoria Symphony in Canada, the Johnstown Symphony and a return to Carnegie Hall under the baton of Kent Tritle with Musica Sacra.

Previously Mr. Brancy performed with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera Tour and Vorarlberger Landestheater as Malatesta in Don Pasquale; Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos; Opéra national de Lorraine as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos; Stadttheater Klagenfurt as Albert in Werther; Opera Omaha as the Steward in Dove’s Flight; Oper Frankfurt as Dancaire/Morales in Carmen; Florida Grand Opera singing the title role in Eugene Onegin; Pacific Opera Victoria as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Clarion Music Society as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. Mr. Brancy has also been engaged by Semperoper Dresden, Théâtre du Châtelet, Edmonton Opera, and OPERA San Antonio. He is a regularly featured soloist in the St. Matthew Passion (Bach), Carmina Burana (Orff), Ein deutsches Requiem (Brahms), Requiem (Fauré); Messiah (Handel); Elijah (Mendelssohn), Mass in B minor (Bach), Krönungsmesse (Mozart) and has collaborated with conductors Helmut Rilling, James Gaffigan, Lawrence Renes, Alexander Prior, Klaas Stok, and Alexander Briger. Mr. Brancy has sung with the San Francisco Symphony, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Boston Symphony, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Kansas City Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra, among others. His concert and recital appearances have taken him to the Royal Concertgebouw, Weill Recital Hall, Hugo Wolf Akademie, Société d’art vocal de Montréal, Carmel Bach Festival, and the Kennedy Center.

Mr. Brancy won First Prizes in the Art Song Division of the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montreal; the 2018 Lotte Lenya Competition in New York; the 2015 Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition; and the 2014 Marilyn Horne Song Competition. He has also won Sullivan Foundation Grand Prize; Second Prize at the 2017 Wigmore Hall Competition in London; and the Media Prize in the 2017 Belvedere International Singing Competition in Moscow.

The 2019 release of Tobias Picker's Fantastic Mr. Fox, performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project with an all-star cast of singers led by Mr. Brancy and conducted by Gil Rose, won the 2020 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Recording.

Mr. Brancy is a native of New Jersey. He has a B.A. and Graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance from The Juilliard School in New York.

Peter Dugan
Peter’s debut performances with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony were described by the Los Angeles Times as “stunning” and by the SF Chronicle as “fearlessly athletic.” He is heard nationwide as the host of NPR’s beloved program From the Top. He has appeared as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North America and abroad, and can be heard as the piano soloist on a new release of Ives’ Fourth Symphony from Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. In 2020, he joined violinist Joshua Bell for At Home With Music, a national PBS broadcast and live album release on Sony Classical. Prizing versatility as the key to the future of classical music, Mr. Dugan is equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop idioms.

A sought-after multi-genre artist, Mr. Dugan has performed in duos and trios with artists ranging from Itzhak Perlman and Renee Fleming to Jesse Colin Young and Glenn Close. The Wall Street Journal described Mr. Dugan’s collaboration with violinist Charles Yang as a “classical-meets-rockstar duo.” Mr. Dugan has been presented in chamber music recitals by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Music at Menlo, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the Moab Music Festival. He was the 2019 featured recitalist for the California Association of Professional Music Teachers, and has soloed with the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, New World Symphony, and Mid-Texas Symphony.

His debut album with baritone John Brancy – A Silent Night: A WWI Memorial in Song – pays homage to composers who lived through, fought in, and died in the Great War. Brancy and Dugan toured this program across North America in commemoration of the centennial of WWI, including performances at The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Stanford University, the United States Naval Academy, and the Smithsonian Institute. Together Brancy and Dugan won first prize at the 2018 Montreal International Music Competition and second prize at the 2017 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition.

Mr. Dugan advocates the importance of music in the community and at all levels of society. As a founding creator of Operation Superpower, a superhero opera for children, he has travelled to dozens of schools in the greater New York area, performing for students and encouraging them to use their talents – their superpowers – for good.

Mr. Dugan holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied under Matti Raekallio. He resides in New York City with his wife, mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, and serves on the piano faculty at the Juilliard School Evening Division. Mr. Dugan is a Yamaha Artist.