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Students, Faculty + Alumni

Alumnus Matthew Plenk joins voice faculty of Lamont School of Music

Matthew Plenk

Tenor Matthew Plenk ’06 MM, ’07 AD has been appointed Assistant Professor of Voice with the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver.

This season Mr. Plenk performed at the Metropolitan Opera as Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor and in its productions of Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He also appears in the Cleveland Orchestra's performances of Strauss' Daphne. 

A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in the 2007–2008 season as the Sailor’s Voice in Tristan und Isolde under the baton of Maestro James Levine, a role he repeated under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. He has since returned to the Met as Arturo, Janek in The Makropoylos Case, the Song Seller in Il Tabarro and Marcellus in Hamlet, and appeared as Arturo in the Met’s 2011 tour of Japan. Other recent opera engagements have included his debuts at the Los Angeles Opera as Steuerman in Die fligende Holländer and the Opera Theater of St. Louis as Frederick in The Pirates of Penzanze, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at the Virginia Opera, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Des Moines Metro Opera, Ferrando in Cosí fan tutte at the Atlanta Opera, Don Ottavio at the Boston Lyric Opera and the Des Moines Metro Opera,  Nanki-Poo in The Mikada at the Virginia Opera, and Ferrando, Nanki-Poo, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Flute in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Kudrjáš in Janácek’s Kat’a Kabanová with the Yale Opera.

Mr. Plenk made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Metropolitan Opera Chamber Ensemble, singing the Brahms Liebeslieder Walzer and duets by Schumann.  Other concert engagements have included concert performances of Salome with the Cleveland Orchestra in Cleveland and in Carnegie Hall, Borsa in a concert performance of Rigoletto with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Shepherd in Oedipus Rex with  both the Boston Symphony Orchestra (with James Levine) and the Philadelphia Orchestra (with Charles Dutoit), his debut at the Tanglewood Festival as Iopas in Berlioz’ Les Troyens with James Levine conducting, and appearances at the Aspen Music and La Jolla Summerfest festivals, and with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Hartford Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Los Angeles based Musica Angelica Baroque, Connecticut Chamber Orchestra, University of North Carolina Symphony, and Yale Philharmonia, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.

In 2005 Mr. Plenk was one of sixteen singers invited to work with Naxos Records and Yale University in a collaborative project to record the complete songs of Charles Ives.

A Samling Scholar, Matthew Plenk holds a bachelor’s degree from the Hartt School of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. His many awards include Grand Finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, First Place winner of the Five Towns Music Competition, and Grand Prize winner at the Music Lovers Competition.

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