Robert Gildon
Robert Gildon (baritone) studied at the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) in New York for three years. He attended the Aspen Music Festival (summer 2000), singing both the lead role in John Casken's Golem conducted by Diego Masson, and Amantio in Gianni Schicchi under Julius Rudel. He was a student at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1996 and 1999, where he performed in Gianni Schicchi under Robert Spano. At MSM he participated in productions of Argento's Postcards from Morocco and Handel's Lotario. Robert made his professional début singing the role of Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas) at the Bruges Early Music Festival.
Robert recently made his London Symphony Orchestra and Barbican Hall début performing the baritone solos in Dave Brubeck's La fiesta de la Posada, a work he also performed with the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz at the Philharmonie in Munich and in Ludwigshafen.
Other recent engagements include the TV opera Buzz on the Moon by Jonathan Dove (Channel 4), a recital of Fauré, Kosma, and Jonathan Harvey with Jeff Cohen and Benny Sluchin (member of the Ensemble Intercontemporain), a Radio France broadcast of songs by Noel Lee, and Haydn's Seven Last Words with the Maggini Quartet.
Forthcoming engagements include a recital of Paul Bowles and Copland songs in Lisbon, covering Wigmaster and Harlequin at Garsington Opera, and performances with Streetwise Opera at the Almeida.
Previous performances include Tamerlano (Cambridge Handel Opera Group), Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel (Opera Group), the roles of Narrator and Hel Helson in Britten's Paul Bunyan (Dartington), John Wilkes Booth in Sondheim's Assassins (Pimlico Opera Prison Project), the world première of a Ned Rorem song in Paris (broadcast on Radio France), Maugiron in Chabrier's Le roi malgré lui (Grange Park Opera), Vaughan Williams's Hodie (Sheffield Cathedral), Bernstein's Songfest (Westminster Philharmonic), and the roles of Papageno, Masetto, Schaunard (with The Opera Project), Belcore (New Sussex Opera), and Captain Corcoran (D'Oyly Carte Opera Company).
Robert attended the Centre International de la Melodie Française in Tours (August 2004) where he worked with François le Roux, Jeff Cohen, and Noel Lee, and recently worked with Andreas Scholl at the Britten Pears School in Aldeburgh. In April 2005 Robert was a prize winner in the Concours de Musique de chambre Musiciens entre Guerre et Paix in Paris.
He has a master's degree in Middle Eastern Politics from Exeter University. He studies with Joy Mammen.