Herbert Burtis has become internationally recognized as a teacher of voice. He has vocal studios in New York City, Rumson NJ, and Sandisfield MA.

A number of his vocal students are presently to be heard on Compact Disc and seen on Opera Videos, notably Marti Bookstein, Janet Brown, Jane Bryden, Eileen Clark, Judith Gray, Jennifer Lauby, Peggy Noecker, sopranos, Ted Huffman, treble, Karen Goldfeder, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Barbara Rearick, mezzo-sopranos, Mark Kagan and James Reese, tenors, Benjamin Luxon, Chad Karl, Jeremy Lees, James Maddalena, and Nathaniel Watson, baritones, Nigel Brookes and Alan Gibson, basses, and Nancy Ford, cabaret singer and composer of
I'm Getting my Act Together and Taking it on the Road and other theatre pieces.

Mr. Burtis and Janet Brown appear on a recently released CD of songs by Ernst Bacon (CRI), Fond Affection, recorded live at the Bacon Centennial concert at the Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA. It also contains Bacon songs sung by Amy Burton. It was recommended for a Grammy award.

In December 1999 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson made her Metropolitan Opera début as Myrtle Wilson in the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby. She returned to reprise the role last spring at the Met. She appeared there again this season as Didon in Les Troyens of Hector Berlioz. She is the fifth student of Mr. Burtis to be on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera Company.

Current students of his who teach on university campuses include Janet Brown, Syracuse University, Jane Bryden and Judith Gray, Smith College, Barbara Rearick, Princeton University, Nathaniel Watson, University of Toronto, Canada, and Emily Romney, The Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA.

He is the author of Sing On! Sing On!, published in 1992 by ECS Publications, Boston, Massachusetts, and Vocalizing from the Ground Up!, published by Alberti Productions in 2000. This latest book contains two CDs, which are narrated by Mr. Burtis. The vocalises are sung by soprano Janet Brown and the foreign language diction exercises are spoken by Jeanne Bovet, French, Heinke Brendler, German, and Mary Carter, Italian. His book, How to Make your Arm into a Wet Noodle!, (Alberti Publications) on the piano theories of Theodor Leschetitzky book is available through Alberti Publications and this website.

Herbert Burtis has had a many-faceted career in music. As a pianist, organist and harpsichordist he has performed throughout the United States, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, Bermuda, and the West Indies. He has twice performed the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach in fourteen concerts at Columbia University, his alma mater, as well as the complete organ works of César Franck in St. Thomas Church, New York City and elsewhere. His interest in contemporary music for organ has included performances of the Arnold Schönberg Variations on a Recitative at Harvard University, in New York City and throughout the USA.

For many years he toured internationally with the concert comedienne Gertrude Neidlinger, with whom he made his Carnegie Hall début in 1967

He had the honor of playing before Her Majesty, the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.

Recently he appeared once more at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall with singers Janet Brown, Judith Gray, and Barbara Rearick in the Alberti Productions presentation of Love, Women, & Song!

With the piano duo, Burtis/Benoist, he has performed in Carnegie Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, and throughout the USA. As a collaborative chamber player he has appeared in the Kluksdahl (cello)/Burtis Duo, Reed-Ulmer (flute)/Burtis Duo, and Hedwig (trumpet)/Burtis Duo in Weill Hall, nationally and internationally, as well as in worldwide tours with various other artists. As a young musician in New York City he accompanied Metropolitan Opera singers Judith Raskin, soprano and Jerome Hines, basso.

Mr. Burtis's teachers include Mahlon Searnes, Harriet Hillier Burchill, Mrs. William H. Neidlinger, Anna Hamlin, and Olga Averino, voice; Carolyn Willard, Helen Kiel, and Ernst Victor Wolff, piano; Vernon de Tar, Claire Coci, and Marilyn Mason, organ; Gustave Leonhardt, harpsichord; Harold Friedell and Searle Wright, composition.

Mr. Burtis was one of fifty auditors selected to participate in the Christa Ludwig master classes at Carnegie Hall in December 2000.

Students of his have performed at:
  • The Aldeburgh Festival
  • The Metropolitan Opera
  • The New York City Opera
  • The Boston Lyric Opera
  • The St. Louis Opera
  • The San Francisco Opera
  • The Houston Grand Opera
  • The Los Angeles Opera
  • The Santa Fe Opera
  • Opera-Quebec
  • Les Arts Florissant
  • L 'Opera Comique
  • Palais Gamier
  • L 'Opera-Bastille
  • L 'Opera de Lyons
  • L 'Opera de Caen
  • L 'Opera de Strasbourg
  • The Salzburg Festival
  • The Tanglewood Festival
  • Ozawa Hall at the Tanglewood
          Music Festival
  • The Göttingen Festival
  • The Great Woods Festival
  • The Hallé Orchestra
  • The Edinburgh Festival
  • The Glyndebourne Festival
  • Weill Hall
  • The Buxton Festival
  • The Norfolk and Norwich
          Festival
  • The New York Philharmonic
  • The Boston Symphony
          Orchestra
  • The Saint Louis Symphony
  • The Houston Symphony
  • The Toronto Symphony
  • The Orchestra of St. Luke's
  • The Boston Pops
  • The Concertgebouw
  • The Berlin Philharmonic
  • The San Francisco
          Symphony
  • The Hollywood Bowl
  • The Minnesota Orchestra
  • The Handel-Haydn Society
  • The Australian Chamber
          Orchestra
  • The Caramoor Festival
  • Carnegie Hall
  • Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
  • Avery Fischer Hall
  • Alice Tully Hall
  • Wigmore Hall
  • Brooklyn Academy
          of Music
  • The Mark Morris Dance
          Group
  • The 92nd St. 'Y'
  • The Great Performers
          Series at Lincoln Center

  • Operaworks
  • DiCapo Opera Theatre
  • New York Opera Forum
  • Long Island Opera Company
  • Toledo Opera Company
  • Brooklyn Lyric Opera Company
  • Houston Symphony Orchestra
  • Montréal Symphony Orchestra
  • Québec Symphony Orchestra
  • English Opera Group
  • The Royal Opera House, London
  • Covent Garden
  • Amsterdam Opera House
  • Brussels Opera House
  • Frankfurt Opera House
  • Prague Opera House
  • Vienna State Opera
  • La Scala, Milano


  • Copyright © 2008 Herbert Burtis—All Rights Reserved
    You can e-mail Mr. Burtis and Alberti Productions at roodhill@taconic.net

    Copyright © 2008North Star Data