Louis Burkot
Fields of Study:
Voice Performance
After completing his master’s degree at the Yale School of Music, Louis Burkot enjoyed a career as a tenor soloist with orchestras and choral societies. Performing such diverse repertoire as Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, the Evangelist in both of Bach's Passions, Mendelsohn's Elijah, Stravinsky's In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, Orff's Carmina Burana and many of the oratorios of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Kodaly and others. He has appeared as Acis in Handel's Acis and Galatea with the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, Ferrando in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, as a soloist with the New Haven Symphony, at the Blossom Festival, with the orchestras of both Vermont and New Hampshire, the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, and with over 50 collegiate and regional choral societies along the East Coast. Paul Hume of the Washington Post said of his performance in Stravinsky's Mass "Of the four soloists, tenor Louis Burkot sang with beautiful tone and unerring musical instincts." Recital repertoire has included both Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise as well as Vaughan Williams’ On Wenlock Edge, Faure's La Bonne Chanson, and Rorem's King Midas.
He is best known as the long-time Artistic Director of Opera North which has been nationally recognized for its Resident Artist program that has helped launch the careers of many internationally acclaimed singers, conductors, and directors. He has conducted nearly 100 productions for Opera North. From 1993 – 1998, he was the Musical Director of Opera New England, the touring arm of the Boston Lyric Opera. Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe praised his conducting as “first-rate, capable and stylish,” and Opera News magazine notes his conducting “sparkles with verve and sensitivity to the needs of singers.” Additionally, he has guest conducted for regional opera companies in Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, and Florida.
Louis Burkot currently teaches voice at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, a position he has held since 1981, and was awarded a Distinguished Teaching award in 2000. As director of the Dartmouth College Glee Club, he has conducted most of the major choral/orchestral masterpieces including The Saint John Passion of J.S. Bach, the Requiems of Mozart, Fauré, Duruflé, and Brahms (performed in Carnegie Hall), Barber's Prayers of Kierkegaard, Verdi's Quatro Pezzi Sacri and Rachmaninoff's All-night Vigil. Other responsibilities at Dartmouth have included coaching chamber music, and conducting operas, musicals, and ballets. He has given master classes at conservatories nationwide, served as a judge in competitions including the semi-finals of the Metropolitan Opera Council Annual auditions, the Corbett Scholarship competition at University of Cincinnati College Conservatory, and the Lynam Competition of the University of North Carolina/Greensboro.
A longtime master teacher at the Westchester Summer Vocal Institute (now the Queens Summer Vocal Institute), he joined the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music in the Fall of 2021.