John Buffett
Voice
Office: UMC-C304
e-mail: john.buffett@csulb.edu
Baritone John Buffett enjoys a versatile career that takes him from chant and Renaissance polyphony to the concert stage as a soloist—with a range from Bach and Handel to Brahms, Britten, and Mahler—to the Opera house, singing roles from Mozart to Debussy, Puccini, and Verdi.
On the concert stage, Buffett has sung with the Symphonies of Utah, San Antonio, Winston-Salem and Syracuse, The Mark Morris Dance Group, The Los Angeles and Rochester Philharmonics, The Pacific Chorale, and The Cleveland Orchestra. He has also been a featured performer with many of the nation’s leading early music ensembles, including Apollo’s Fire, Ars Lyrica, The Charlotte Bach Festival, Bach Collegium San Diego, The Oregon Bach Festival, and The Boston Early Music Festival. In the Opera house, Buffett has performed numerous roles with Utah Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera Memphis, Utah Festival Opera, Mercury Opera, The Ohio Light Opera, and The Lakes Area Music Festival. Also an accomplished chamber musician, he regularly performs with some of America’s best choral ensembles and has spent numerous seasons as a core member of Seraphic Fire, The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, True Concord, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
Recent engagements include both Bach passions, Bach’s B minor mass, Easter Oratorio, Magnificat and Cantatas 32, 75, 153, 140, and 158; Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, the Mozart, Brahms and Fauré Requiems, Handel’s Messiah, and Charpentier’s Petite Pastoral and Te Deum. His wide-ranging roles on the Opera stage include Dandini in La Cenerentola, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Marullo in Rigoletto, Wagner in Faust, Golaud in Pelleas é Mellisande and Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro.
The list of conductors Buffett has sung with includes many illustrious names like Gustavo Dudamel, Franz Welser-Möst, Robert Tweten, Patrick Dupré Quigley, Josh Habermann, Jeannette Sorrell, Craig Jessop, James K. Bass, Robert Istad, Victor DeRenzi, Grant Gershon, Barbara Day Turner, Scott Allen Jarrett, Matthew Halls, and Paul O’Dette.
Solo appearances at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center highlight other important performances. Mr. Buffett, currently on the voice faculty at CSU Long Beach, received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music.
John’s 2019/20 season includes engagements with Seraphic Fire, The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Bach Collegium San Diego (French baroque program and St. Matthew Passion), LA Master Chorale, LA Philharmonic and The La Jolla Symphony (Britten War Requiem).
