Cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman and tenor
Peter Tantsits in Peter Maxwell Davies'
Eight Songs for a Mad King
Eight Songs for a Mad King
Peter Tantsits, tenor
Peter Tantsits is widely known for his performances of King George III in Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King with the International Contemporary Ensemble, a work that has become a signature for ICE. Their elegant, high-impact production has been embraced internationally; “riveting” says the Chicago Tribune “with histrionic talent and vocalism difficult to surpass” (La Jornada), Alex Ross of the New Yorker called it “one of the sharpest shows I saw last season.”
A protean performer, Peter has enjoyed a number of international successes recently and made an acclaimed debut at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala last spring singing the high-lying role of Syme for the Italian premiere of Lorin Maazel’s opera 1984, based on the Orwellian novel.
Peter’s work in opera and in concert has taken him across the country and to France, Italy, Austria, Great Britain, Russia, the Middle East and Mexico, and he has given recitals in venues such as the Snape Maltings in Suffolk, the Rachmaninoff Hall in Moscow, the Teatro Ocampo in Morelia and the Centrepoint Theatre in Dubai. He made his Lincoln Center debut with the New York Philharmonic as a “vivid, well-delineated” Spoletta in Tosca, and his Kennedy Center debut with the National Symphony lead by Leonard Slatkin in Salome. He made his Viennese debut with the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich at the Wiener Konzerthaus in Candide lead by Kristjan Järvi, and was recently featured with the American Symphony Orchestra as the pilot Pellerin in Luigi Dallapiccola’s rarely performed opera Volo di notte at Avery Fisher Hall. Last summer he returned to the Festival Lyrique-en-mer in France where he won acclaim for his “marvelous incarnations” in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and performed Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the festival orchestra under Philip Walsh.
Performing with ICE since its inception, Peter has collaborated with the ensemble on works by composers such as Berio, Birtwistle, Gubaidulina, Kagel, Ligeti, Nono, Rihm, Ustvolskaya, and Xenakis. He also holds a strong interest in music of 18th century France, appearing as Tacmas in Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, the title role in Platée and Charpentier’s Actéon in performances lead by Emmanuelle Haïm for the 2003 Aldeburgh Festival.
Peter holds degrees in voice and musicology from the Oberlin Conservatory and Yale University.
