Now
in his forty-fifth year as Music Director and Founder of
AmorArtis, Johannes Somary has achieved a prominent international
career. He has conducted such ensembles as the English Chamber
Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony, and London’s Royal
Philharmonic. He has participated in many international
festivals including those in Sion, Dubrovnik, Madeira, Israel,
and Greece.
He
has worked with such renowned singers as Elly Ameling, Sheila
Armstrong, Maureen Forrester, Ernst Haeflinger, Benjamin
Luxon, Felicity Palmer, and John Shirley-Quirk, and with
such well-known instrumentalists as David Bar-Ilan, Garrick
Ohlsson, Aaron Rosand, and Dizzy Gillespie.
Maestro Somary’s discography claims over fifty recordings,
including four Stereo Review Record-of-the-Year Awards.
Many of his recordings have been re-released on compact
disc. The most recent of these re-releases is a disc entitled
Russian Favorites for Strings, which includes Tchaikovsky’s
Serenade in C and works by Arensky, Borodin, and Prokofiev,
on Vanguard Classics Ultra Analog. Among his new discs is
one on Premier, which features him in his dual role as conductor
and composer. This disc is entitled Three Is Company, the
name of one of his compositions recorded.
Born
in Switzerland, Johannes Somary is active as an organist,
and has received critical acclaim for his recent recordings
of Handel organ concertos. In Fanfare it is written: “Somary
plays a charming organ … that has a bell-like positif.
These organ concertos rival the best versions of Op. 4 in
the catalog.” Commissioned by the Jefferson Music
Festival, Maestro Somary’s dramatic cantata Is This
Life? was given its premier at the Kennedy Center in Washington,
D.C. in June 1994, with Michael Moriarty as narrator. The
Washington Post remarked after the performance: “The
musical language is attractive, with its myriad texts. From
the podium, Somary got results which were right on the mark.”