Paul Houghtaling, bass-baritone

Bass-baritone Paul Houghtaling has earned acclaim throughout the United States in a diverse repertoire. He first appeared with The St. Cecilia Chorus in 2001 as soloist in Schubert's Mass in A Flat and has since been heard as soloist with the Chorus in works by Bach, Haydn, Berlioz, Gounod, and Puccini. Career highlights include a debut with the Bard Music Festival and the American Symphony Orchestra in Haydn's L’infedeltá delusa, the release of the Philip Glass soundtrack to Reggio's film Naqoyqatsi for SONY, Kennedy Center appearances with the Waverly Consort, European tours as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with the Teatro Lirico d'Europa, Opera Buffa: Comedy On Stage on Lincoln Center's Meet the Artists series, and Mozart's Requiem and Bach's Magnificat in Carnegie Hall with The St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra under David Randolph.

Recent engagements included a return to Anchorage Opera as Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore, stage direction of Telemann's Der Schulmeister for both the Long Island Baroque Ensemble and Anchorage Opera's Second Stage series, and a return to Holy Cross College for Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem. In addition to his December 2007 appearance with The St. Cecilia Chorus at Carnegie Hall in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, the current season brings Mr. Houghtaling to Nashville Opera as Sir Joseph in H.M.S. Pinafore and to Iowa as stage director for Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre’s production of The Gondoliers. He is the Director of Opera Theatre at the University of Alabama.

Mr. Houghtaling has also appeared with the Boston Early Music Festival, Mark Morris Dance Company's production of Dido and Aeneas, My Lord Chamberlain's Consort at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Folger Consort in Washington, D.C., the Billings, Colorado, Gulf Coast, and New York Chamber Symphonies, the Bach Societies of Miami and Worcester, American Classical Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Orchestra of St. Luke's Bach Cantatas in Context series, Erie Philharmonic, and BachWorks at Merkin Hall.

Earning considerable attention for his work in contemporary music, especially for his performances of Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King in Boston and New York, he has performed with Gunther Schuller and the Harvard Group for New Music, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, the American Composers Orchestra in its Sonidos de las Americas Festival and the Brooklyn Philharmonic in its Virgil Thomson Centenary. He has created roles in Philip Glass's The Witches of Venice, Hoiby's The Tempest and the title role in William Harper's El Greco for the off-Broadway Intar Theater.

Additional opera engagements include appearances with the Abilene, Anchorage, Boston Lyric, Baltimore, Central City, Des Moines, Knoxville, Lake George, Long Beach Civic Light, Tacoma and Santa Fe Operas, the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur (Pali in Die Zigeunerbaron), the Metropolitan Opera Guild and L'Opéra Français de New York, among others. He has recorded for the New World, Waverly, Balkanton, EMI, Euphorbia, Albany Records and Prospect Classics labels.