About.

baritone Ricardo Sepúlveda
Credits: Michael Rausch

Baritone Ricardo Sepúlveda recently appeared as a guest soloist in Copland's Old American Songs with Quincy Symphony Orchestra. He has sung with Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana, Concerto Urbano, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, West Suburban Symphony, Puerto Rico Opera, International Vocal Arts Institute, New Jersey Opera, Muddy River Opera Company, and Eastern Symphony Orchestra. Credits include Brahms' Deutsches Requiem, Weill's Das Berliner Requiem, Zuniga in Carmen, Bottom in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Polyphemus in Händel's Acis and Galatea, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Marcello in La bohème, and Émile de Becque in South Pacific.

 

Dr. Sepúlveda holds a Bachelor of Music degree (B.M.) from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, a Master of Music degree (M.M.) and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree (D.M.A.) with a cognate in Vocal Health and Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His doctoral project is titled, "A Pedagogical Guide to Selected Songs by Charles Ives for Undergraduates." He is a graduate from the Summer Vocology Institute at the National Center for Voice and Speech at the University of Utah, and completed Level One of "Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method," and Estill Voice Training® course: Level 1 Figures for Voice Control. The baritone was the recipient of the UIUC Stotler Fellowship Award, the Grace Elizabeth Wilson Award for Excellence in Singing, and the Joseph W. Schlanger Memorial Opera Scholarship. 

 

While completing studies in his native Puerto Rico, Dr. Sepúlveda was active in the theatre scene. Most notable were his roles in plays by Federico García Lorca and Myrna Casas at the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center. A lover of concert repertoire and choral literature, he is a former member of the "Orfeón San Juan Bautista" and was part of its first commercial recording "Puerto Rico a Capella" (2001), and "Yale Institute of Sacred Music: Orfeón San Juan Bautista" (2002). He was also featured in "In a Vale of Tears" (2012) by Tudor Voices (First Step Records, Millikin University).

 

Dr. Sepúlveda joined the community of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico as an Assistant Professor of Voice in 2021. He has served on the faculty of Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, Western Illinois University, and Millikin University. Stage direction credits include Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief , Mozart's The ImpresarioBastien and Bastienna, and Le nozze di Figaro, and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. He is a proud member of the Voice Foundation, National Association of Teachers of Singing, National Opera Association, and the Pan-American Vocology Association.