Monday, Feb. 3, 2025 at 8 p.m.
Squires Recital Salon

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On the program: works by H. Lane Wilson, Franz Schubert, Frank E. Tours, Ralph Vaughan Williams, J.S. Bach, Amy Woodforde-Finden.

Baritone Ben Kazez studied on the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, and later at the Guildhall School of Music. Today, he enjoys a varied career of solo and small-ensemble work with many leading early music ensembles, specializing in Bach and French baroque repertoire.

As a soloist, Ben has performed under conductors including Masato Suzuki, William Christie, Florian Heyerick, Václav Luks, Christian Curnyn, Andrea de Carlo, and Lionel Meunier, and with ensembles including the Netherlands Bach Society, Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, and Vox Luminis. Highlights for the 2023–24 season include Pilatus in Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Netherlands Bach Society, a one-voice-per-part Matthew Passion with Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht and Johannes Leertouwer, and a range of other soloist roles, including Bach’s cantata ‘Schauet doch’ at Thomaskirche, Kuhnau Magnificat for Musikfest Bremen, and Bach Christmas Oratorio and Zelenka Missa Paschalis with Vox Luminis. Ben’s solo repertoire includes all of J.S. Bach’s major bass roles, as well as sacred works by Carissimi, Charpentier, Handel, Kuhnau and Monteverdi, and later works from the requiems of Mozart and Brahms through to French chansons and lieder.

He regularly works with groups such as the Monteverdi Choir, Netherlands Bach Society, Vox Luminis, Oxford Bach Soloists, Les Epopées, and Accentus. Highlights for the 2024–25 season include Charpentier David et Jonathas with Ensemble Correspondances (Opéra de Lille), and recent ensemble highlights include Monteverdi Vespers at the Royal Chapel of Versailles, Monteverdi operas at the Salzburg Festival and La Fenice, and Berlioz operas at the BBC Proms.

After earning his master’s from London’s Guildhall School in 2018, Ben became a Britten Pears Young Artist and was awarded the Salvat Bach Grant. He has trained with Dame Emma Kirkby, Max van Egmond, Dame Sarah Connolly, Yvonne Kenny, and Martin Katz, and now divides his time between Paris, Amsterdam, and Berkeley, California.

Richard Masters is a soloist, opera coach, chamber musician, orchestral pianist, and an associate professor of piano and collaborative piano on the music faculty in the School of Performing Arts.

Masters’ significant collaborations include concerts with baritone Donnie Ray Albert, flutist Valerie Coleman, mezzo-soprano Marta Senn, the late mezzo-soprano Barbara Conrad, and many others. He has appeared with former Boston Symphony principal trombonist Norman Bolter, former Juilliard String Quartet violinist Earl Carlyss, saxophonist Harvey Pittel, and under the baton of the late Lorin Maazel. Masters has performed solo, chamber, and vocal recitals throughout the United States and in Europe.

In addition to his performances as a pianist, Masters is active in the world of opera and musical theatre as a coach and conductor. 

Masters is a Yamaha Artist. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music.