Ralph Cato – Baritone
American baritone, Ralph Cato has travelled the world extensively, telling stories in song with his warm, clarion baritone voice.
Early in his career, he toured extensively as a member of the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers and the Los Angeles Jazz Choir as a featured soloist. His operatic performances include the title role in Gianni Schicchi, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Amonasro in Aida, Renato in Ballo in Maschera, Sonora in Fanciulla del West, Germont in LaTraviata, Scarpia in Tosca, and many others. He performed his first Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff with the National Symphony in Tallinn, Estonia. He has since performed the solos in in this work numerous times to critical acclaim, and will give his twentieth performance of the work in the spring of 2022.
Cato also toured Europe, China, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the US as the primary singer in the sensational Irish dance show, Riverdance. He has been featured as soloist with the Long Beach Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Bangor (Maine), The Pacific Chorale, The L.A. Master Chorale, and The Santa Barbara Choral Society. His performances with orches-tra include The Pacific Symphony, Bangor Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, as well as the San Bernardino, Folsom, Stockton, and Auburn Symphonies, the Silicon Valley Sym-phony and The Southeast Symphony of Los Angeles.
Ralph is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree and a Master of Music degree in Vocal performance respectively.
Dr. Cato has always been a champion of music education and performance. When he is not performing, he teaches applied voice, and diction for singers at the University of California, Riverside.
Tenor, Benjamin Brecher has performed over fifty operatic roles with many of the world’s most prestigious opera companies, specializing in the high lying lyric tenor repertoire. He has performed 16 roles with New York City Opera alone. Career highlights include performances with Opera Orchestra of New York, L’Opera de Nice, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, L’Opera de Montreal, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, among many others. His orchestral solo repertoire includes Mozart, Handel, Orff, Bach, Haydn, as well as many performances of Britten. In 2000 he began performing the great Irish Tenor songs in a concert produced for him entitled A Celtic Celebration, Twenty years later, the show has become a North American hit with performances with 45 Symphonies in North America. Ben continues his discography having added his twelfth recording in 2016 Forgotten Liszt, with pianist Robert Koenig, and will record a new release in 2022 entitled “Three Centuries of Thomas Moore” including the music of Britten, Berlioz, and Sarah Gibson on MSR Classics. He is a Professor of Voice at University of California Santa Barbara, where he has served as the Head of Voice.
Born and raised in Southern California, April Amante is a versatile soprano with expertise and facility in repertoire spanning from early music to contemporary musical theater.
Tracy Van Fleet is pleased to return to the Santa Barbara Choral Society. As a soloist, she has performed with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Lüneburg Symphony in Germany, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río in Mexico, Pasadena Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Los Angeles Bach Festival, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Philharmonic, USC Symphony and Chorus, and others. She has had many appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Opera Pacific, San Diego Opera and Opera Colorado.