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Guest Conductor

Guest Conductor Biography: Cailin Marcel Manson

By October 4, 2024No Comments
Cailin Marcel Manson

 

 

Cailin Marcel Manson will be leading the Springfield Symphony Orchestra at our Eternal Echoes concert on March 15. Tickets are available online or through our box office.

Cailin Marcel Manson, baritone and conductor, a Philadelphia native, has toured as a soloist and master teacher at major concert venues throughout the United States, Europe and Asia with many organizations, including the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, SWR Sinfonieorchester, Taipei Philharmonic, Bayerische Staatsoper – Münchner Opernfestspiele, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Teatro La Fenice, Teatro San Carlo, Konservatorium Oslo, and the Conservatoire de Luxembourg.

He has also been a guest cantor and soloist at some of the world’s most famous churches and cathedrals, including Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, and La Madeleine in Paris, San Marco in Venice, Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, San Salvatore in Montalcino, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, and Wieskirche in Steingaden.

Cailin has built a sterling reputation over an extensive 20-year career, encompassing both baritone and some tenor repertoire, for his exceptional musicianship, keen dramatic instincts, and vocal flexibility. Critics have praised his performances as “arresting” and “revelatory,” making consistent note of his “ringing projection,” “commanding tone,” (MassLive.com), “lively, original acting skills” (Hudson-Housatonic Arts), and his “ability to bring the internal drama of the music to life” (Scranton Times-Tribune). Recently, Cailin created and premiered the roles of The Hunter in John Aylward’s Oblivion and The Man in Matthew Malsky’s A Dill Pickle, released on New Focus Recordings and Neuma Records within the last year. A founding artist for the Wagner In Vermont Festival, he has performed the role of Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, and the complete cycle of Wotan/Wanderer roles in Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried).

He recently made an acclaimed Carnegie Hall conducting debut with MidAmerica Productions in March 2023, leading Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, becoming the second Black person in the performance history of Carnegie Hall to conduct the work at that historic venue. Shortly thereafter, MidAmerica Productions appointed Cailin as their Artistic Consultant, and he has since returned to Carnegie Hall numerous times to conduct masterworks in performance. He will return to La Madeleine with MidAm International — as a conductor — to lead a centennial performance of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem in June 2024, at the very site where the work was premiered in 1888 and performed in 1924 for the composer’s state funeral.

An advocate for rarely-heard repertoire and the work of underrepresented composers, Cailin led the New England Premiere of Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses, and conducted performances of Luigi Cherubini’s Medea, Robert Aldridge’s Parables, Jules Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine, William Grant Still’s And They Lynched Him On A Tree, Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3, among many others. He also commissioned and premiered two works by emerging composers of color: the song cycle Unsaid Prayers by Nico Gutierrez, and a full symphonic work by Felix Jarrar, his Symphony No. 1, “Banishing Grief.”

Cailin has held positions as Music Director of the Vorarlberger Musikfest, Music Director and Conductor Laureate of the Chamber Symphony of Atlantic City, Artistic Director and Conductor of the Montgomery County Youth Orchestra, Chair of Vocal Studies at the Hazleton Conservatory for the Performing Arts, Director of Music at The Putney School, Music Director of the Bennington County Choral Society, and as Music Director of The Keene Chorale. He has also served as a member of the faculty of the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts and the Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary. He also founded and directed the Germantown Institute for the Vocal Arts and the Germantown Concert Chorus.

Cailin is a frequent guest conductor, clinician, presenter, panelist, and adjudicator for conventions, conferences, competitions, and music festivals. Cailin studied voice performance at Temple University, and opera performance and orchestral conducting at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg.