Frederick: Cantata on the Life of Frederick Douglass

Baritone Markel Reed “brings great articulate power and style” (Broadway World) to concert, recital and opera performances throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. A passionate conveyor of the operatic repertoire, Reed has been cited for “delighting the crowd with his musical and dramatic expression” (Upstage Post) in both standard and contemporary repertoire. At the Metropolitan Opera, Reed performed with the ensemble in productions of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and sang in their 2019 GRAMMY® Award-winning production of Porgy and Bess. That same year, he created the role of Chester in Fire Shut Up in My Bones in its premiere at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

The 2025-26 season features Mr. Reed in the roles of Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus with Washington Opera Society, Marcello in La Bohème with Portland Opera, his return to the role of James Baldwin in Sneed’s The Tongue & The Lash with Opera Theater of Saint Louis, a premiere with American Opera Projects as Ben/Postmaster in The Post Office and Thomas Eugene Mckeller in Damien Geter’s American Apollo with West Edge Opera.

In the 2024-25 season, Reed performed the roles of Masetto in Opera Omaha’s production of Don Giovanni, a guest performance of Henry “Box” Brown in Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road with UK Opera Theatre, Jigger Craigin in Boston Lyric Opera’s Carousel; and Yusef Salaam in Anthony Davis’ The Central Park Five with Detroit Opera.

Recently, Opera Today deemed Reed “a physical dynamo and a vocal delight” for his portrayal of Parson Alltalk in Joplin’s Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Boston Globe said he “sang with magnetic swagger as the fighter in his prime” as Young Emile in Terence Blanchard’s Champion with Boston Lyric Opera. His other recent successes have included performing the roles of Figaro in Virginia Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Joey in The Time of Our Singing with Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland, Marcello in La bohème with Opera Steamboat, and the roles of Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Leporello (Don Giovanni), John Sorel (The Consul), Dandini (La Cenerentola), Ruggiero (La Liberazione di Ruggiero), Count Pâris (Roméo et Juliette), Le Dancaïre (Carmen), and Kromov (The Merry Widow). In 2021 he sang in the premiere of Damien Sneed and Karen Chilton’s The Tongue & The Lash at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where he portrayed “a credible James Baldwin and sang through his argument with power and finesse” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

Reed’s recent concert appearances have included singing as a Vassal in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood; and as the baritone soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Toledo Symphony, Carmina Burana with the Omaha Symphony, Handel’s Messiah with the Utah Symphony, a holiday program with Steamboat Symphony. Markel made his Carnegie Hall debut performing the Bach’s Magnificat and Margaret Bonds’ Ballad of the Brown King with the Cecilia Chorus of New York. He performed in a concert of works by Shawn Okpebholo, including Songs in Flight and Two Black Churches with Arts DuPage in Chicago; and premiered Nkeiru Okoye’s Black Bottom with the Detroit Symphony.

Reed’s online credits include playing the role of Schaunard in a filmed version of La Bohème, a co-production from companies More Than Musical, Opera Columbus, Opera Omaha, and Tri-Cities Opera; Voodoo Man in Shirley Graham Du Bois’s 1932 opera Tom Tom livestreamed from the Caramoor Festival; Pat in David Wolfson’s Fortune’s Children: A Zoom Opera with Hartford Opera Theater; Papageno in “A Distant Flute” from The Lighthouse Opera Company, a scaled version of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; and the title role in Don Giovanni with the Bronx Opera’s “BronxLive.”

Reed has performed as a member of Utah Opera’s Resident Artist Program, and has also sung with Kentucky Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Soo Theatre Project, National Music Festival, Opera Louisiane, dell’Arte Opera, Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, Utopia Opera, Utah Festival Opera, Harlem Opera Theater, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Markel Reed pursued his bachelor’s degree in music performance at Oakwood University and is an alumnus of the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre program.

Brian S. Story was a music educator for forty years. For eight years, he was director of bands at the Alternative School for Math & Science in Corning, NY from which he recently retired. Brian retired from public school teaching after thirty-two years during which he was director of bands at the Canandaigua City Schools and Prattsburgh Central School. His ensembles received numerous awards and recognitions. He was a guest conductor and adjudicator at numerous music festivals, and was sought out for commissions of band and choral works from elementary through college level. He received his B. S. in Music Education and his Masters of Music from Mansfield University in Mansfield Pa. where he studied both vocal and instrumental performance and has been honored as a MU Music Department Alumni of Distinction. Brian also studied choral composition with Dr. Z. Randall Stroope.

Brian was an active composer and performer as an instrumentalist and vocalist. He has numerous published marching band and concert band compositions and arrangements under the pen name Brian Scott (Alfred/Belwin), and choral works under Brian Story (Colla Voce). As a choral/vocal performer he has been a member of Worcester Chorus and Trinity Lutheran Choir (Worcester, MA), Madrigalia (Rochester, NY), Musica Spei (Rochester, NY), was the founder of the Motet Singers (Corning, NY), bass section leader and then choir director at Christ Episcopal Church (Corning, NY). As an instrumentalist, Brian was the conductor of the Finger Lakes Concert Band (Canandaigua, NY), a member of the All Star Big Band (Corning, NY), Southern Tier Wind Ensemble (Elmira, NY), and The Corning Area Community Band (Corning, NY). He is a member of the New York State School Music Association, the National Association for Music Education, the New York State Band Director’s Association, and is a member of ASCAP.

For the past three years, Brian had devoted his life to the writing of “Frederick, Cantata on the Life of and Writings of Frederick Douglass,” whom he revered. He completed the work 2 days before his untimely death.

Founded during the global upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, the New England Repertory Orchestra is the result of a call amongst musicians in the region to a common purpose and a common love. Staffed with local professionals, a core ensemble was formed with the goal of recruiting a roster of musicians more representative of the diversity we see in our society.

New England Repertory Orchestra knows that music can uplift and sustain hearts, change minds, and catalyze positive and restorative change. NERO honors diverse voices through the performance of both new and past works by underrepresented composers, while offering fresh performances and insights on repertoire by composers that are familiar, as well as feature some of those artists’ historically neglected works.

NERO is committed to being present in our community and engaging it in its programming. We create a place of belonging and a network for symphonic musicians — particularly artists of color — to have an artistic home year-round. ​They are not only professional orchestral musicians — NERO is a connective part of the community, working to be of greater service.

Under the baton of Artistic Director Chris Shepard and Assistant Director & Accompanist Mark Mummert, The Worcester Chorus of Music Worcester numbers approximately 100 professional and amateur singers who perform several times each year, primarily as part of Music Worcester’s season, including an annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. Their repertoire also includes other classical choral pieces, opera, musical theater, American folk songs, and more.

The Worcester Chorus is a key component of THE COMPLETE BACH, Music Worcester’s 11-year project to present all of J.S. Bach’s known works, which concludes in March 2035. A subset of the group, the Worcester Chorus Women’s Ensemble (dir. Mark Mummert) is also featured in the Music Worcester season.

Learn more and see their full schedule.

Cailin Marcel Manson, baritone and conductor, a Philadelphia native, has toured as a soloist and master teacher at major concert venues throughout the United States, Europe and Asia with many organizations, including the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, SWR Sinfonieorchester, Taipei Philharmonic, Bayerische Staatsoper – Münchner Opernfestspiele, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Teatro La Fenice, Teatro San Carlo, Konservatorium Oslo, and the Conservatoire de Luxembourg.

He has also been a guest cantor and soloist at some of the world’s most famous churches and cathedrals, including Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, and La Madeleine in Paris, San Marco in Venice, Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, San Salvatore in Montalcino, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, and Wieskirche in Steingaden.

Cailin has built a sterling reputation over an extensive 20-year career, encompassing both baritone and some tenor repertoire, for his exceptional musicianship, keen dramatic instincts, and vocal flexibility. Critics have praised his performances as “arresting” and “revelatory,” making consistent note of his “ringing projection,” “commanding tone,” (MassLive.com), “lively, original acting skills” (Hudson-Housatonic Arts), and his “ability to bring the internal drama of the music to life” (Scranton Times-Tribune). Recently, Cailin created and premiered the roles of The Hunter in John Aylward’s Oblivion and The Man in Matthew Malsky’s A Dill Pickle, released on New Focus Recordings and Neuma Records within the last year. A founding artist for the Wagner In Vermont Festival, he has performed the role of Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, and the complete cycle of Wotan/Wanderer roles in Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried).

He recently made an acclaimed Carnegie Hall conducting debut with MidAmerica Productions in March 2023, leading Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, becoming the second Black person in the performance history of Carnegie Hall to conduct the work at that historic venue. Shortly thereafter, MidAmerica Productions appointed Cailin as their Artistic Consultant, and he has since returned to Carnegie Hall numerous times to conduct masterworks in performance. He will return to La Madeleine with MidAm International — as a conductor — to lead a centennial performance of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem in June 2024, at the very site where the work was premiered in 1888 and performed in 1924 for the composer’s state funeral.

An advocate for rarely-heard repertoire and the work of underrepresented composers, Cailin led the New England Premiere of Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses, and conducted performances of Luigi Cherubini’s Medea, Robert Aldridge’s Parables, Jules Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine, William Grant Still’s And They Lynched Him On A Tree, Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3, among many others. He also commissioned and premiered two works by emerging composers of color: the song cycle Unsaid Prayers by Nico Gutierrez, and a full symphonic work by Felix Jarrar, his Symphony No. 1, “Banishing Grief.”
 
Cailin has held positions as Music Director of the Vorarlberger Musikfest, Music Director and Conductor Laureate of the Chamber Symphony of Atlantic City, Artistic Director and Conductor of the Montgomery County Youth Orchestra, Chair of Vocal Studies at the Hazleton Conservatory for the Performing Arts, Director of Music at The Putney School, Music Director of the Bennington County Choral Society, and as Music Director of The Keene Chorale. He has also served as a member of the faculty of the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts and the Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary. He also founded and directed the Germantown Institute for the Vocal Arts and the Germantown Concert Chorus.

Cailin is a frequent guest conductor, clinician, presenter, panelist, and adjudicator for conventions, conferences, competitions, and music festivals. Cailin studied voice performance at Temple University, and opera performance and orchestral conducting at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg.