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Douglas Webster
(541) 346-3787
dwebster@uoregon.edu

Webster recently joined the faculty of the University of Oregon as Director of the UO Opera Theater. Prior to that, he was the director of performing arts for South Park High School in Colorado. He has also taught on the faculty of the University of Memphis. Since 1999, he has been the artistic director for the American Singer Seminar in Colorado.

Making his debut singing for the composer's 70th Birthday celebration at the Tanglewood Festival, Webster began a twenty year association with the epic theater piece, MASS and the music of Leonard Bernstein. Now considered the foremost interpreter of Bernstein's MASS, Webster has lead productions as singer, director and producer across the country including Portland, Eugene, Santa Cruz, Eugene, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, The Kennedy Center in Washington, and Carnegie Hall in New York. International appearances include Spain, Latvia, Lithuania and The Vatican.

Performing the music of Bernstein in concert, Webster has appeared with the Madison Symphony, Wichita Symphony, Oregon Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Indiana University Bernstein Festival in 1998 and on NPR.

His other chamber music appearances include the Breckenridge Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, San Juan Islands Chamber Music Series, Round Top, Texas, The Long Island Mozart and Seacliff Chamber Players, Mohawk Trails Festival and Internationally at the Banff Centre, Kuhmo Festival (Finland), and CIFM Festival in Nice, France.

Winner of the Joy In Singing and Concert Artists Guild Awards, he has performed as a recitalist and soloist with symphony orchestras in forty-six of the United States. His recent orchestral repertoire includes: Orff's Carmina Burana, the Requiems of Fauré, Duparc and Brahms and Vaughn Williams Sea Symphony. He has performed with the orchestra pops show, BRAVO Broadway! In venues across the country. He also performs regularly with The Broadway Baritones. He made his Broadway debut in Les Misérables. His inauspicious Metropolitan Opera debut was made singing in a shower onstage, literally, in Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk.

Six-time Emmy winning composer, Lanny Meyers created the monologue opera, Yma Dream for Webster based upon the popular short story by Tony winner, Thomas Meehan. Premiered at Symphony Space in 2001, performances of Yma Dream have taken place at the Carousel Concert series in Florida, the Mendocino Music Festival in California and for CUNY-TV in New York. Performances of Yma Dream are scheduled for Oregon, Colorado and New York in 2008. Webster has performed with the Virginia Opera (Fledermaus), Shreveport Opera (Don Giovanni), Illinois Grand (West Side Story) and Eugene Opera (Fledermaus).

A student of Nicola Rossi-Lemeni at Indiana University he studied Opera Stage direction with the late Italian basso-cantante. He previously studied with William Shriner receiving his bachelor of music from IU in 1985. Webster received his Master of Music degree in voice and opera in 1986 from Northwestern University, studying under Norman Gulbrandsen. In 1987 he attended the Academy of Singing and the New Work Development programs at the Banff Centre in Alberta.  Summer music festival apprenticeships include Aspen (chamber choir), the Santa Fe Opera and the Dorian Opera.

Webster's other teachers include Lorraine Nubar (NYC), Mary Morrison (Banff) and Gerard Souzay (France). His coaches have included Leonard Hokanson, Dalton Baldwin, and Martin Isepp. He studied opera stage direction under Richard Alderson at Northwestern and Ross Allen and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni at Indiana. He studied vocal pedagogy with Barbara Doscher at the University of Colorado, a protégé of Berton Coffin. Webster's first teacher, Paul Kittle was also a student of Berton Coffin.

He has recorded for Telarc (A Disney Spectacular - Grammy nominated), New World (Schoenfield's Klezmer Rondos), Yamaha (Schumann's Dichterliebe), Zephyr (Souza's El Capitan), Town Hall (Song Recital: Alive in America), Eco Classics (Ravel: Chansons de Madécasses, Barber: Dover Beach) and Koch (Davidson: While David Danced) records. His performance of MASS at The Vatican is available on Kultur Video.