Enrico Lagasca, Bass
Filipino-American bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca has traveled long musical distances in the short time since he began his career—comprising 16 oratorios, 17 new-music works, seven opera roles plus 13 song cycles and collections.
Heard on four GRAMMY® award-nominated recordings, Enrico is both a solo and ensemble singer in settings as diverse as New York’s mission-specific TENET Vocal Artists and major orchestras under conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Pablo Heras-Casado, Nicholas McGegan, Jane Glover, John Butt, John Nelson, Matthew Halls and Carl St. Clair.
Amid the wide-ranging demands of his repertoire, critics note that Enrico is readily heard: “Bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca summoned nearly as much volume as everyone else onstage put together, and matched that visceral force with vivid phrasing,” wrote Baltimore’s Tim Smith regarding the U.S. premiere of the Jonathan Dove opera The Monster in the Maze by the Baltimore Choral Arts Society.
Other performances have been noted for their emotional magnitude. “Lagasca’s singing was an outpouring of devotion and grief as elegant as it was moving.” wrote Rick Perdian in Seen and Heard International regarding Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at New York’s Saint Thomas Church in New York.
Soloist highlights of his current season include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with Voices of Ascension in New York, Handel’s Messiah at Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society and at Carnegie Hall with Musica Sacra, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at Washington Bach Consort, and Mendelssohn’s Walpurgisnacht with the St. Louis Symphony. “Whether it’s opera or oratorio, it’s storytelling to me,” he says, “even when singing the often-heard words Kyrie eleison.”
As much as the great sacred works of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart remain in his bones, Enrico is increasingly inclined to seek out music by living composers such as Wolfe, Dove, Caroline Shaw, and Reena Esmail. He has sung Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered, Jake Heggie’s The Moon is a Mirror, and Nico Muhly’s The Last Letter. Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles figured repeatedly in his 2022-2023 season, along with Craig Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard—the latter reflecting Enrico’s particular interest in works that address the LGBTQ+ community. He is a member of the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, which is dedicated to diversity and social justice.
Enrico Lagasca performs in Handel’s Messiah on Dec 10, 2024
He continues moving between solo and ensemble, deriving great satisfaction from participating in concert ensemble repertoire, with highlights including two hybrid presentations: Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (afterlight) directed by Peter Sellers in September 2022 at the Park Avenue Armory with Trinity Wall Street, and joining the GRAMMY® award-winning ensemble The Crossing in the New York Philharmonic’s premiere of Julia Wolfe’s multi-media unEarth. He also will participate in performances of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers and St. John of Chrysostom in Old Church Slavonic. Chamber-group singing is a touchstone of his career so far; regular engagements of this sort include Bach Collegium San Diego, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Seraphic Fire, Skylark, Clarion, Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble and the LEONIDS.
Opera roles include Collatinus in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia and Lorenzo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi. His willingness to take risks onstage has brought him to the attention of forward-looking directors such as Thaddeus Strassberger, RB Schlather and Kevin Newbury.
In the art song world, his contest entries include the Das Lied International Song Competition in Berlin, where he was a finalist in 2013, and the 2015 24th International Vocal Arts Competition Le Centre Lyrique in Clermont-Ferrand, France. In 2019, he participated in Renee Fleming’s inaugural Song Studio at Carnegie Hall. His song repertoire includes Schubert’s Winterreise, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. An educator himself, he maintains a small private vocal studio, and conducts visiting artist residencies in schools such as Southern Virginia University and Amherst College.
In his native Manila, Enrico was named as such purely out of preference, not in reference to any of the great Italian-born vocal icons. With his vocal talent recognized early, Enrico studied at the University of the Philippines, and from ages 16 to 20, sang in the Philippine Madrigal Singers. “The choral tradition is huge for us,” Enrico explains. “We went on tour, and we got to see the world. It captivated my love for what I’m currently doing right now.”
He is a graduate of New York’s Mannes College of Music and lives in New York City with his domestic partner of several years.
