Biography

Bass-baritone David Neal has appeared with Lake George Opera, Syracuse Opera, Baltimore Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Vivente, the Opera Company of Northern Virginia, Annapolis Opera, Sorg Opera, the Banff Centre, Central City Opera, the New England Lyric Operetta, and the Interact Theatre in Washington, DC. Concert appearances have included performances at TheTimesCenter and the Liederkranz Foundation in New York, the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, and with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Lancaster Symphony, York Symphony, the Handel Choir of Baltimore, Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Ithaca Community Choruses, the Society for New Music, and many other organizations. The Syracuse Post-Standard recently hailed his "resounding bass voice" as Dick Deadeye, and Opera News noted his "vocally impressive" performance as Virgil T. in The Mother of Us All. As Arkel in Pelléas et Mélisande, The Baltimore Sun described his performance as "deeply moving," and as The Soldier in John Krumich’s Yonder Mountain, the Washington Post stated that "David Neal is a splendid comedian and a fine singer."

Recent performances include Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro with Tri-Cities Opera, Simone in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Michael Ching’s Buoso’s Ghost in a production at Lake George Opera conducted by Mr. Ching, the Commendatore in Don Giovanni with Baltimore’s Opera Vivente, Dick Deadeye in HMS Pinafore with Syracuse Opera, and Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte and Colline in La Bohème with Tri-Cities Opera. Recent oratorio performance include the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Schubert’s Mass in A Flat Major, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

An avid supporter and performer of contemporary music, Neal commissioned Lowell Liebermann’s Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening: Six Songs on Poems By Robert Frost and Robert Paterson’s Winter Songs, and gave their world premieres in April 2008. Both of these works were featured again in the Society for New Music’s Cazenovia Counterpoint Festival in July of 2008 in a performance that was broadcast on WCNY Radio’s "Fresh Ink." Mr. Neal sang the New York premiere of the Paterson work at the TheTimesCenter with the American Modern Ensemble in January 2009. Other new music performances have included Stephen Paulus' The Long Shadow of Lincoln at the Cazenovia Counterpoint Festival in 2009, and world premieres of works including Yonder Mountain (John Krumich) with the Opera Company of Northern Virginia, Blake Songs (Christopher Morgan Loy), and Looking Back at Spring (Mark Weiser). He has also been a frequent featured singer in Opera Cowpokes, a unique crossover blend of opera and western songs created by baritone Steven Stull.

David Neal is the Chair of the Performing Arts Department at SUNY Cortland, and is also the Artistic Director and Founder of The Arts at Grace, a concert series devoted to providing access to professional concerts to a broad spectrum of the community. He lives in Groton, New York, with his wife, Gailanne Mackenzie.

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