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First and foremost, Neil Farrell is a singer. A lyric tenor trained at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, receiving the B.Mus. in Music Education, and at the Florida State University School of Music where he earned the M.Mus in Voice Performance, singing is his life.
One of the busiest and most diversified singers in New York, he works frequently in music of all periods from the middle ages through the 20th century, including popular and folk styles.
A regular soloist with the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, he has been acclaimed as the Evangelist in Bach's St. John Passion, and has appeared there in Bach's Mass in B Minor, Magnificat, and St. Matthew Passion.
His lifelong involvement in church music, from his days as a boy soprano at St. George's Episcopal Church in his hometown of Maplewood, NJ to the present, and his interest in arranging pop and jazz standards for a cappella voices eventually led to the composition of the works that prompted the forming of Green Bushes Publishing.
Playing trombone in the jazz ensembles at Maplewood's Columbia High School and at Oberlin introduced him to the world of big band jazz, and whetted his appetite for the vocal jazz arrangements that would follow. His big-band-flavored arrangements of The Way You Look Tonight and the TV theme songs for the cartoons The Flintstones and Underdog, for Equal Voices, have become audience favorites. Folk songs and Christmas carols are among the other genres his arrangements explore.
Neil is a soloist on the New York Virtuoso Singers' CD of 20th century a cappella music To Orpheus, on the CRI label. Recent recordings include soli e duettini, (on Koch International) on which he sings Milton Babbitt's Four Cavalier Settings with guitarist William Anderson. They'll perform the Cavalier Settings at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on May 10, 2006, in an all-Babbitt, 90th Birthday concert (yes, it really will be Milton's birthday!).
A member of early music vocal ensemble Pomerium, he appears on their four CDs on Deutsche Grammphon's Archiv label, including Creator of the Stars, a disk of Medieval and Renaissance Christmas music, and A Musical Book of Hours, a collection of music for feasts throughout the church year. Pomerium's latest CD, Josquin: Missa Hercules dux Ferrarie, on the new Glissando label founded by former DG Archiv executive Peter Czornyj, follows the critical success of Musica Vaticana, one of Glissando's virgin releases. In March 2006, Pomerium records a new album of works by Monteverdi and Gesualdo..
A member since its inception of Voices of Ascension, Neil appears on most of their now extensive discography, and is a soloist in Guillaume Du Fay's Alma redemptoris mater on Voices of Ascension: From Chant to the Renaissance.
As if all this weren't enough, Neil also is active avocationally in the traditional Irish music scene in New York City, and can frequently be found emptying pints of Guinness Stout and playing guitar, bodhran, or pennywhistle in various sessions around town. If you run into him at one, ask him to sing The Green Bushes for you!
You can write Neil at tenpiualto@grnbushes.com
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