Drew Minter

Regarded for over four decades as one of the world’s finest countertenors, Drew Minter grew up as a boy treble in the Washington Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys.  He continued his education at Indiana University and the Musik Hochschule of Vienna.  Drew appeared in leading roles with the opera companies of Brussels, Toulouse, Boston, Washington, Santa Fe, Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass, and Nice, among others.  A recognized specialist in the works of Handel, he performed frequently at the Handel festivals of Göttingen, Halle, Karlsruhe, Maryland.  As a countertenor he sang with many of the world’s leading baroque orchestras, including Les Arts Florissants, the Handel and Haydn Society, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Freiburger Barockorchester, and as a guest at festivals such as Tanglewood, Ravinia, Regensburg, BAM’s Next Wave, Edinburgh, Spoleto, and Boston Early Music; other orchestra credits include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Drew was a founding member of the Newberry Consort, TREFOIL, and My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort; he has performed often with ARTEK, the Folger Consort and Severall Friends.  Mr. Minter has made over 70 recordings on Harmonia Mundi, Decca/London, Hungaroton as well as the BBC and CBC.  He appears in two films: as Tolomeo in Peter Sellars’s “Giulio Cesare,” and as the Devil in “In the Symphony of the World; a Portrait of Hildegard of Bingen.”  He was a frequent writer for Opera News.

Drew Minter is also a lauded stage director. He began as director of the operas at the Göttingen Händel Festival, directing period baroque productions.  He was also founding artistic director of Boston Midsummer Opera.  Since then he has directed productions in many styles for the Opéra de Marseilles, the Cloisters, Caramoor, the Boston Early Music Festival, Lake George Opera, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Handel and Haydn, Amherst Early Music Festival, Boston’s Opera Aperta, and for numerous colleges and universities.  In addition to giving workshops in the vocal and dramatic performance of baroque music, Mr. Minter is Senior Lecturer in Music at Vassar College, where he teaches voice and conducts the Vassar Madrigal Singers.