Metropolitan Opera Baritone, Mark Oswald – one of NY’s 5 famed teachers

Mark Oswald Associate Teachers is a network of trusted colleagues created to bring the best voice teachers together to train the opera stars of tomorrow. These voice teachers understand and seek to pass on Mark’s successful vocal technique through positive, supportive teaching.

Mark offers consultations for singers seeking advice on vocal technique, repertoire, career direction. If he feels it is appropriate and/or if he is not available, he will recommend one or two of his Associate Teachers to the singer. Lessons may include a written recommendation for specific things to address. This written recommendation contains important information for Mark’s Associate Teacher to insure the continued growth of the singer. The Associate Teacher, who has frequent direct contact with Mark, can then suggest an appropriate time for Mark to hear the singer in the future to receive feedback for both the Associate Teacher’s and the singer’s benefit.

Mark Oswald has gained the consistent trust and respect of the musical and vocal community at large. At any one time, Mark has 20 singers on the Metropolitan Opera’s performing roster. He has taught many of the Young Artists from the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann program. His singers appear in opera and Broadway productions throughout the world. Mark teaches full time at Manhattan School of Music and maintains a full private studio as well. He has a positive and detailed approach which he ‘tailors’ to every unique voice and style from Opera to Broadway.

Mark is in demand as an adjudicator of competitions for the Metropolitan Opera and as a teacher of master classes on vocal technique. He is a frequent program collaborator at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, San Diego State, Brevard Music Center, and the University of South Carolina. He has been on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music since 2003 and previously on the faculty of Hartt School of Music. He often works with singers from the Curtis Institute.

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At 23, Mark Oswald was one of the youngest male singers to debut in a leading role in the history of the Metropolitan Opera history.

Mark has sung with all of the great singers of the golden era, including Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo and has chosen teaching over his famed singing career (of a dozen years) after having amassed several hundred performances as a baritone (and tenor) at the major opera houses of the world in every traditonal role in his category. He is considered by his Metropolitan Opera colleagues as one of the finest technical singers with whom they work.

Known for his technical prowess and musicality as a leading lyric baritone for 12 years at the Metropolitan Opera, he has sung frequently under James Levine and today’s leading conductors. Mr. Oswald has worked in many of the leading opera houses of the world, including the Vienna State Opera, Hamburg, San Francisco, St. Louis, San Diego, Miami, and the Dallas Opera, to name a few. He has sung alongside nearly every leading singer of the world today in these acclaimed theaters.

He gained a wide variety of experience at an early age as one of the youngest male singers in history to debut at the Metropolitan in a leading role, with nearly 500 performances, including extensive concert experience and an impressive discography. Among his recordings are Carmina Burana with the Montreal Symphony, the title role of Billy Budd on a live recording from Venice, and An American Requiem by Richard Danielpour. He also took part in a recent Virgil Thomson disc, and Holiday at Pops with Frederica von Stade and the Boston Pops, televised on PBS. Mr. Oswald is widely known for his Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, his Silvio in I Pagliacci, and his Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. He sang with Alfredo Kraus in the late tenor’s final L’elisir d’amore at the Metropolitan. He sang his first performance of the same opera with Luciano Pavarotti, Kathleen Battle, and Maestro Levine and was showcased as a singer on the James Levine Gala in the late 90s.