Joel Katz is  an internationally recognized teacher and performer.  He has taught at Bayreuth, Germany, where he assisted a number of the distinguished singers at the Bayreuth Festival (including Falk Struckmann, Julian Tovey and Deborah Polaski), privately in Manchester, England, and at the Theatre de La Monnaie in Brussels. Mr. Katz as well has prepared artists  for roles at the Metropolitan Opera, the Staatsoper in Berlin, La Scala and the Wiener Staatsoper.
 
Known for his “sonorously deep voice” (Toronto Star) and his strong dramatic presence,he created the role of the Blue Man in the premiere of Murray Schafer’s opera, “The Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix”.  Mr. Katz’ work with the Canadian Opera Company can be seen in the video, “The Making of an Opera”, as the Marchese of Calatrava in “La Forza del Destino”, distributed internationally. In the spring of 2005 he played the roles of the Minister and the Judge in two of Alexina Louie’s new operas for the television special “Burnt Toast”, broadcast on CBC tv’s “Opening Night”.   In the summer of 2006 he participated in the development of Thomas Dusatko’s “Joseph Brant” for Opera Ontario, with performances in Hamilton, Brantford, and Kitchener. His performance as the “Ancien Evreu” in Opera Ontario’s Samson et Dalila in January 2007 was lauded as “distinguished” by the Hamilton Spectator: in addition, he was singled out for praise for his performance as the Sacristan in Tosca in May of 2007 (Hamilton Spectator). In the 2008 season, he sang Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro under Mario Bernardi and the RCM orchestra, and appeared in a Rhombus media/CBC tv demo of POLITICS IS CRUEL: AN OPERA, by Alexina Louie and Dan Redican, directed by Larry Weinstein. POLITICS IS CRUEL will be filming in October of 2010. In April 2010, he will sing Alcindoro/Benoit in Boheme for Opera Hamilton under Cal Stuart Kellogg.

 

Mr. Katz has been a prizewinner and finalist at vocal competitions in Munich, Rio di Janeiro, and Philadelphia, and has won the Schubert Prize for Lieder (Austria). He has performed with the Canadian Opera Company, the Edmonton Opera, the Calgary Opera, the Pacific Opera, the Winnipeg Opera, and Opera Hamilton in Canada,  the Opera Theater of St. Louis and the Chattanooga Opera in the United States, and the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern and the Landestheater Hof in Germany.  In concert and oratorio, he has appeared with with the Ludwigsburger Festspiele, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Schaffhausen Festival Orchestra, the Tapei Symphony, the Toronto Symphony and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Quebec Symphony and the Edmonton Symphony, the Winnipeg Chamber Players and the Royal Conservatory Orchestra among others.  He has sung with many notable conductors, including Leonard Slatkin, Mario Bernardi, Wolfgang Gonnenwein, Elmer Iseler, Maurizio Arena, Julius Rudel, Catherine Comet, Daniel Lipton, Victor Feldbrill and Timothy Vernon.

Mr. Katz is presently a member of the Voice Faculty at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory, where he has been teaching since 1997. In addition to his expertise in practical vocal instruction, Joel teaches classes at the Glenn Gould School, in Vocal Literature, (1600 to the present, over two years), Vocal Pedagogy (a one term course), and Opera Repertoire (a one term course presenting opera excerpts in concert form), and heads the RCM Summer Opera at the Royal Conservatory School.

Joel Katz has also taught a Performance Master Class, dealing with issues of technique as applied to performance. In the winter of 2009 he launched a series of master classes in technique and repertoire for his private vocal studio.

 

His past students include:

Falk Struckmann  (Internationally famous German baritone, and headliner at the Metropolitan Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Salzburg Festival, Wiener Staatsoper, Theater Unter den Linden (Berlin), La Scala, etc.  Joel was his major teacher for two years and assisted him in preparing the Holländer, Hans Sachs, and Telramund for Theater Unter den Linden in Berlin, Kurwenal for the Bayreuth festival and for his debut as Wotan in Die Walküre in Vienna and as Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera.

Julian Tovey (Covent Garden, Candian Opera Company, Opera du Rhin, winner of the Wagner Foundation  Scholarship U.K.)

Rhonwen Derbez (Winner of the District NAATSA competition, 2006, recipient of a $10,000 project grant from Canada Council, and member of the COC chorus since 2005)

Caroline Kuehn (Recent graduate of the Master’s program at the Cleveland Institute of Music).

Deanne Wells (Winner of the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques for 2006, the 3rd prize at the Elora Festival Competition in 2004, winner of a special award at the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions (Buffalo) in 2005, winner of the Roussel Prize at the Concours de l'Interpretation de la Musique Francaise, and chosen as participant at the Chatauqua Festival voice program for 2005. Ms. Wells is a graduate of the Glenn Gould School, and is currently singing at the Theater am Revier, Gelsenkirchen, Germany.)

Lindsay Hunt (Winner of the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques for 2005 and 2006, Finalist at the Francesco Vinas competition in Pamplona, Spain, winner of the 2005 NATS Ontario Chapter Auditions, Most Promising Singer, Mature Category,  colaratura lead in Murray Shafer’s Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix, summer 2006. Lindsay is a graduate of the Glenn Gould School of the RCM.)

Tonia Ermolenko (Enrolled in the Master’s program at Hunter College, January 2007, accepted for summer 2005 to the Spoleto Vocal Arts Symposium  on scholarship, and admitted for summer 2005 to the International Lyric Academy in Rome, and the Intermezzo Young Artists Development Program in Hartford, Connecticut).

Giovanni Spaneu: Accepted for Fall 2005 on full scholarship in the Vocal Performance programs at University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, and Wilfred Laurier.

Many other professional singers, including  Keith Boldt,  Roger Honeywell,  Juan Chioran,  Julaine Molnar,  Jayne Smiley,  Peggy Evans and  Diane Lewarne in Canada and a number of working singers in Germany, including Lucy Coleby (Staatstheater Münster, Capetown Opera,  Heidleberg Opera), Sarah-Louise Owens (Sud-West Funk  Chorus, Bayreuther Festspiel Chor),  Stephen Roberts (Voice Faculty, Royal Scottish Academy), Emily Rawlins (Houston Grand Opera, Opera Köln), and others.