GM2022 Paul Austin Kelly: 20th Century English Art Songs:
Britten & Quilter

Paul Austin Kelly is one of the most dazzling young lyric tenors appearing before the public today, bringing “all the musicality one could wish” to his performances in opera and on the concert stage (Opera International).  This musicality, combined with a beautiful lyric voice, has garnered him continuous popular and critical acclaim.  Of his Count Almaviva, the Daily News declared “His tenor is most attractive, and he showed an especially easy top register and command of fioratura.  Also, he was riotously funny when disguised either as a drunken soldier or a bogus music teacher.”
Mr Kelly first made waves in the recording world singing the role of Jesus in John Knowles Paine’s St Peter: An Oratorio (conducted by Gunther Schuller and released by GM Recordings in 1989), a performance described by American Music as “excellent … giving weight to important words while keeping Paine’s grande ligne going in long arches.”

Now hear him in his solo recording debut, accompanied by the renowned pianist and conductor Michael Recchiuti, in a recital of songs by Benjamin Britten and Roger Quilter.  This CD includes Britten’s The Holy Sonnets of John Donne and On This Island, plus Roger Quilter’s Seven Elizabethan Lyrics and To Julia (26 songs in all!).  Experience the emergence — and inevitable ascendance — of a voice of our times.