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The German-born American tenor, Matthew Swensen, is a graduate of Penfield High School. Currently he is a student at the Boston Conservatory of Music and is tenor soloist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline. He is the winner of many scholarships and prizes that include third place in the national High School Classical Singer Magazine Competition, and first prizes in the William Schmidt Competition, Glen Miller Foundation Voice Competition, the Matthew Angelone Scholarship, the Rotary International Voice Scholarship and the Barbara Starapoli for High School singers. He was recently recognized by WROC-TV (ABC News) as their “Bright Spot of the Day” - a tribute to young musicians and artists that have already distinguished themselves in the arts. He also won the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s Young Artist Award.
Matthew Swensen sang solo in Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music with the orchestra - recorded in 2010 for Harmonia Mundi (Release date: Fall 2012). His first opera role was Cobweb in Eastman Opera Theatre's production of A Midsummer Nights Dream, appeared in the title role of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat for Third Church Musicals and was a member of the ensemble for the Mercury Opera productions in Kodak Hall (La Boheme, The Barber of Seville, and Pirates of Penzance).
Matthew Swensen is committed to serving others through his music and recently gave a benefit concert for the Shepherd Home Hospice with his friend Daniel Nitch on classical guitar. He has appeared on the Eastman Faculty Artist Series with his father Robert Swensen - most notably performing Benjamin Britten’s Canticle of Abraham and Issac.
Recent performances include the tenor soloist in George Frideric Handel’s Messiah in December in Rochester, New York, and the debut of Requiem for Broken Souls in Kansas City, Missouri in Fall 2012. |
