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Staff Profile

Dr Larry Zazzo

Senior Lecturer in Music

Background

An internationally-recognised countertenor as well as historical musicologist, Larry joined Newcastle University's Music department in 2017 and continues to perform in concert halls and opera houses throughout the world (Metropolitan Opera New York, Opera de Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna, Madrid, Munich, Berlin, Beijing, Singapore, Salzburg, Tokyo, Seoul). He has made over 25 recordings of rarely-performed Baroque vocal masterpieces as well as premiering new works by Thomas Adès, Jonathan Dove, Missy Mazzoli, Iain Bell, Rolf Riehm, and Geoff Page. A native of Philadelphia, he studied English Literature at Yale, Music at Cambridge, and Voice at the Royal College of Music. Before coming to Newcastle, Larry was a vocal professor at both the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music in London whilst completing his PhD on Handel's bilingual oratorio revivals at Queen's University, Belfast. 


In addition to his ongoing research into Baroque opera and oratorio, performer wellbeing, historical performance practice, and opera libretto authorship recognition, Dr. Zazzo's recent world-premiere recordings include Jonathan Dove's dramatic cantata for countertenor, Hojoki, with the BBC Philharmonic (Orchid Classics), Handel Uncaged, a solo CD of Handel cantatas including Handel's previously unpublished solo cantata Amore Uccellatore (Resonus Classics), and Baroque Gender Stories, a collaboration with mezzo soprano Vivica Genaux and Lautten Compagney Berlin exploring disguise and gender ambiguity in late Baroque opera (Sony Classics). Also recently released are Handel's Samson (Micah), Saul (David) and Semele (Athamas) with the Choeur de Chambre Namur under Leonardo Garcia Alarcon (Ricercar). In spring 2024, he released a new solo CD funded by the Newcastle Institute for Creative Practice, Weeping Philosophers (Pan Classics), surveying musical depictions of philosophers across the 17th and 18th centuries, and a new recording of Poulenc's Le gendarme incompris with the Manchester Camerata as the Marquis de Montonson.


Performances have included Handel's Solomon at the Royal Opera House, Bertarido in Rodelinda in Lyon, the title role of Tamerlano in a new production in Frankfurt, Orfeo ed Euridice at the National Theatre, Tokyo, Giulio Cesare at the Semperoper Dresden, and new productions of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Vienna State Opera and at Scottish Opera. In 2024, he will again appear at Oper Frankfurt in the title role alongside South African soprano Pretty Yende as Cleopatra in a new production of Giulio Cesare, as well as Reimann's Medea at the Vienna State Opera. He frequently presents workshops and masterclasses around the world (working recently with young singers at the Barock Vokal Akademie Mainz, the Utrecht Conservatoire and Capetown University's opera studio), and has been a jury member for the Cesti Voice Competition in Innsbruck as well as a jury chair for the London Handel Singing Competition. Larry regularly gives interviews in both UK and European media, recently featuring on Radio 3's The Listening Service and In Tune as well as Dutch and Croatian classical radio programmes focusing on his creative practice and musicological research. A council member of both the International Handel Society (Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft) in Halle and the London Handel Institute, he is currently editing the Hallische Händel Ausgabe edition of Handel's The Triumph of Time and Truth for Bärenreiter, and was Principal Investigator on a British Academy grant 'Voiceless?' studying the effects of the pandemic on classical singers across five countries. In the spring of 2024 he visited Princeton University at the invitation of their Humanities Council as an Edward T. Cone Fellow.


At Newcastle, in addition to his roles as Head of Performance and Senior Tutor, Larry regularly leads a group of ICMuS students in a year-long module, Performing Early Opera, conducting and directing fully-staged, historically-informed performances of Baroque dramatic works, including Handel's Acis and Galatea and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Fairy Queen at the Tyne Theatre and Opera House and at Seaton Delaval Hall. Last year he introduced a new module, Translation for Singing, in cooperation with colleagues from the School of Modern Languages. 

www.lawrencezazzo.com

Google Scholar: Click here.

Teaching

MUS2009: Performing Early Opera (Module Leader, conductor, director)

MUS2055 Translation for Singing (Module Leader)

MUS1058/2058/3014/3018: Performance Studies (Module Leader, workshop leader, voice pedagogy and stagecraft)

MUS1012: Understanding Music History (Contributing Lecturer)

MUS2051: Case Studies in Early Music (Contributing Lecturer)

MUS2074: Music in the Renaissance (Contributing Lecturer)


Research
  • Handel opera and oratorio - reception and revival history
  • 17th and 18th century opera libretto authorship recognition
  • Male altos, castrati, and gender in Baroque opera and oratorio
  • Historical performance practice; ornamentation, singing technique, continuo realization
  • Artistic wellbeing and arts policy
Publications