People
Ben Smolder - Voice
Bass-Baritone Benjamin Smolder has enjoyed a varied regional and international performance career. He has performed opera in houses in the Czech-Republic, Italy, 
Spain, Vienna, and Cairo. He has performed roles with the Spoleto Festival, Des Moines Opera, and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, including Reverend Hale in Ward's "The Crucible", Don Prudenzio in Rossini's "Viaggio a Reims", Don Alfonso in Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte", Death in Holst's "Savitri", Collatinus in Britten's "Rape of Lucretia", and Figaro in "Le Nozze di Figaro". He has also gained a reputation regionally as an oratorio soloist and has performed with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Wheeling Symphony, and the Lexington Philharmonic. His oratorio repertoire includes over thirty works with emphasis on the passions and oratorios of Bach. Mr. Smolder was a national finalist in the Wurlitzer Competition and winner of the Greenbriar Song Festival.
He has taught voice for Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, University of Kentucky, University of Dayton, and was appointed as the youngest member of the voice faculty at the West Virginia Governor's School for the Arts. During the summers he has acted as vocal coach and accompanist for Downtown Theater Classics, an equity theater based in the Aronoff Center for Arts. Mr. Smolder can be heard on a new CD of Copland's "The Tender Land" as Grandpa with the Bahu-Slave Martinu Orchestra (Albany Records).
Email: smoldebw@muohio.edu