Yale Institute of Sacred Music & Masaaki Suzuki
Biography Yale Institute of Sacred Music & Masaaki Suzuki
Paul Max Tipton
Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a dignified and beautiful singer, bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton enjoys an active career in opera, oratorio, and chamber music, performing and recording throughout North America, Europe, China, and Korea. A versatile singer, Mr. Tipton’s repertoire ranges from Schütz and Monteverdi to Britten and Bolcom, with his interpretations of the Bach Passions being acclaimed in particular for their strength and sensitivity. He has recently appeared with the symphonies of San Antonio, Grand Rapids, Lincoln, Stamford, CT, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic as part of their first-ever Bach Festival.
He has sung with New Trinity Baroque (Atlanta), The Lyra Baroque Orchestra, the Colorado Bach Ensemble, Seraphic Fire, The Rose Ensemble, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Carmel Bach Festival, Ensemble Florilege (Boston), the Yale Collegium Players, Conspirare, the Festival de Musica Barocca de San Miguel de Allende, Bach Society Houston, Bach Collegium San Diego, the Oregon Bach Festival, Emmanuel Music, Ars Lyrica, Tenet, Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, the Washington Bach Consort, debuted at Spoleto Festival USA in 2015, and has appeared with Cut Circle (Palo Alto) at early music festivals in Maastricht, Antwerp, and Utrecht. He has enjoyed collaborations with Masaaki Suzuki, Matthias Pintscher, Craig Hella Johnson, Kenneth Slowik, Leonard Slatkin, Rubén Dubrovsky, Scott Allen Jarrett, Simon Carrington, Helmuth Rilling, Paul Hillier, Ricky Ian Gordon, Ted Taylor, Grant Llewellyn, and Nicholas McGegan.
Highlights from current and recent seasons include Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Grand Rapids Symphony, Haydn’s Paukenmesse with the Yale Camerata, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio for the Discovery Series at the Oregon Bach Festival, and Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum at Carnegie Hall. He sang the role of Judas in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under Helmuth Rilling at Carnegie Hall in 2007, and soloed under Leonard Slatkin on the Naxos recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence & of Experience, a project that won three Grammys in 2006. He has sung Schaunard with the New York Opera Society while on tour in Toulouse, and has worked closely with composer Ricky Ian Gordon, joining him twice in recital in Ann Arbor and Florence, Italy. Other repertoire has included Britten’s War Requiem, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Martin Katz conducting, Haydn’s Salve Regina in G minor with Nicholas McGegan, baritone soloist in the 2012 Grammy-nominated recording of Brahms’s Requiem, Op. 45 with Seraphic Fire, and all of Bach’s Motets with the Bach Collegium Japan at Woolsey Hall in New Haven. He recently recorded Nicolaus Bruhns’s solo cantatas for bass for the BIS label, and has appeared in recital with Masaaki Suzuki. Current operatic credits include the role of Archibald Grosvenor in Patience with Odyssey Opera, Street Singer in Bernstein’s Mass with the Austin Symphony & Austin Opera, and Plutone in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Göteborg Baroque in Sweden.
Mr. Tipton trained on full fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Music in Ann Arbor, being mentored by mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee, tenor George Shirley, and collaborative pianist Martin Katz. He is a 2010 graduate of the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music in Oratorio & Early Music, studying with tenor James Taylor. Based in Boston, he was made a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music in 2012.
James Taylor
M.M. (Yale University), is an internationally celebrated performer. At home in opera, concert, recital, and musical theatre, he has appeared with numerous opera companies, symphonies, and theatres, including the New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Carolina, Göttigen Handel Festspiele, Theatre Augsburg, and the Nederlandse Reisopera. He has given recitals in the US, Europe, and Asia, and has appeared in leading roles in musicals.
In his earlier roles as a baritone, Mr. Taylor performed the title roles in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Le Nozze di Figaro, Marcello in La Boheme, as well as thirty-three others. As a tenor, his performances have included Siegmund in Die Walküre, the title role in Lohengrin and Parsifal, Don Jose in Carmen, Manrico in Il Trovatore, Cavaradossi in Tosca, and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. His many concert performances include Hándel's Messiah, Bach's Magnificat, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and Mozart's Requiem.
An avid recitalist, Mr. Taylor has presented programs in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Breda, and Groningen in the Netherlands, Munich, Augsburg, and Dusseldorf in Germany, Klagenfurt, Linz, and Vienna in Austria, and Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, as well as several universities and colleges across the United States. Along with the late composer Glenn Roven, he has premiered Schubert’s Winterreise in a singable English translation, and will premiere the last cycle they worked on together, Brahms’ Die Schöne Magelone, in a singable English Translation in 2021 in Richmond, VA.
Among his numerous awards, Mr. Taylor was the winner of the Metropolitan Opera District Auditions for Connecticut and Alabama and was a finalist in the International Belvedere/Hans Gabor Competition, the Dutch International Vocal Competition, and the Lieder Competition of the International Johannes Brahms Competition. In addition, Mr. Taylor was invited to participate in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
A talented and sought-after educator, he has served as Director of Opera at Drake University and the University of Alabama and has been on the music faculties of VCU and the University of Virginia. His students have gone on to such prestigious schools as the New England Conservatory, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, and the Royal College of Music. Several of his students perform regularly with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Semperoper, Glyndebourne, the Opera Comique, Utah Opera, Central City Opera, Landestheater Niederbayern, and the Oldenburgisches Staatsoper.
Mr. Taylor has had the pleasure to work with many of the top Artist Teachers in the business, such as Sherrill Milnes, Richard Cross, Doris Yarick-Cross, Jackson Sheats, Andrew Gainey, and Seth Riggs. He has also participated in Master Classes with Placido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, and Regine Crespin.
Mr. Taylor resides in Bon Air, Virginia, with his wife Sheridan and their two daughters Virginia and Meg.
Masaaki Suzuki
Born in Kobe, Masaaki Suzuki began working as a church organist at the age of twelve. He studied the organ under Tsuguo Hirono at the Tokyo University of the Arts, going on to the Sweelinck Academy in Amsterdam in 1979. There he studied the harpsichord under Ton Koopman and the organ under Piet Kee, graduating with a soloist’s diploma in both instruments. His impressive discography on the BIS label has brought him many critical plaudits, and he is regularly invited to work with renowned period ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Baroque. Masaaki Suzuki also conducts modern orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, in repertoire as diverse as Britten, Fauré, Haydn, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Stravinsky. Masaaki Suzuki combines his conducting career with his work as an organist and harpsichordist. Founder of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Masaaki Suzuki was named honorary professor there in 2015. He is currently guest professor at Kobe Shoin Women’s University as well as principal guest conductor at the Yale Schola Cantorum. In 2001 he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 2012 he received the Bach Medal, awarded by the city of Leipzig.
The Yale Institute of Sacred Music
was founded in 1973 by a grant from the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller Foundation of Columbus, Indiana. As the successor to the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City resituated in one of the world’s great research universities, the ISM has grown from a faculty of three and student body of ten to a vibrant community of well over 100 students, faculty, fellows, and staff.
In partnership with the Yale School of Music, Yale Divinity School, and other academic units at Yale, the Institute and its renowned faculty offer students unparalleled opportunities for in-depth study and interdisciplinary engagement. Students pursuing music degrees receive rigorous conservatory training in choral conducting, organ, or voice. Students in divinity programs study worship, music, literature, and the visual arts in the context of a broad-based, robust theological education. All students create connections between their chosen fields and explore the role of the arts in human flourishing. As skilled artists and thinkers, our graduates become leaders in the Church, the academy, and major arts-related institutions.
ISM fellowships are granted to scholars and artists whose work relates to the mission of the Institute. Relocating to New Haven for one or two academic terms, they are integrated into Institute and university life through teaching and sharing their work.
The Institute also sponsors academic and artistic events, as well as a series of publications to enrich life at Yale and beyond.
