Paul Sperry: In Memoriam

IN MEMORIAM: (1934–2024)

College Faculty:
Vocal Arts: Related Studies in Vocal Arts: Vocal Literature

American lyric tenor Paul Sperry is that rarity in today’s musical world: a singer dedicated to preserving the song recital. Though his experience in opera extends from Monteverdi through Stockhausen, he continues to devote much of his time to the programming and performance of songs from every country and every period of music.

Born in Chicago, Mr. Sperry started piano lessons at age five, graduated from Harvard College, and continued his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. He worked extensively with such masters of art-song interpretation as Pierre Bernac, Jennie Tourel, and Paul Ulanowsky and studied acting with Stella Adler. This combination of liberal arts education, supreme musicianship, and dramatic flair contributed to what the New York Times called “one of today’s leading song recitalists.” Sperry’s extraordinarily wide repertory includes songs, chamber works, and oratorios in fifteen languages and includes more than fifty works that have been written for him by many of today’s leading composers, both European and American . Among them are Beaser, Bolcom, Cipullo, Druckman, Hagen, Hundley, Larsen, Musto, Paulus, Rands, Talma, Henze, Stockhausen, and Maderna.

Among his recordings are four CDs of American songs for Albany Records; Bernard Rands’s Canti del Sole, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for CRI; and the complete songs of Ives, which he recorded with three other singers for Albany Records. Most recently, he has recorded a CD for Albany of four new song cycles by Tom Cipullo, Daron Hagen, Libby Larsen, and Paul Moravec. Zephyr Records has issued a CD of Poulenc songs with pianist Ian Hobson, as well as their CD entitled Great Composers Love Folksongs Too. Schubert’s Winterreise should be released in the very near future, and they have currently recorded a two-CD boxed set of French mélodies, which should be released next year. Mr. Sperry has edited numerous collections of American songs for G. Schirmer, Peer-Southern, Carl Fischer, and Dover Publications. His book American Encores was issued last year by Oxford University Press.