Professor, Voice
mcmillkj@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Website: http://www.kevinmcmillan.ca
Canadian baritone Kevin McMillan is a renowned performer and vocal pedagogue. His performing career has spanned over 40 years with more than 850 concerts, 16 professional recordings, a Grammy award, a Gramophone award and numerous Juno award nominations. A number of his students have proceeded to establish performing careers, both in North America and Europe, and those who have chosen to follow other paths, have done so possessing scientifically-sound and historically-informed perspectives on singing. He is a member of the Voice Foundation, and a founding member of the Pan-American Vocology Association (PAVA).
Critics have praised his elegant lyric baritone voice and singularly remarkable interpretive skills in appearances with virtually every major North American orchestra, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. He has also had a presence in Europe, with appearances in centers such as London, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, and Prague. He has worked with such conductors as Herbert Blomstedt, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Neeme Järvi, Sir Roger Norrington, Hellmuth Rilling and the late Pierre Boulez, Jesús López Cobos, Robert Shaw, Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos, Kurt Masur, and Sergiu Commissiona.
After preliminary schooling at the Universities of Guelph and Western Ontario in Canada, Mr. McMillan studied at the Britten-Pears School in England, and attained a Master's Degree at the Juilliard School in New York. His primary focus has always been the oratorio and orchestral repertoire, and his vocal flexibility and scholarly musicianship have afforded him a broad range of styles and periods - from Monteverdi and Bach to Britten and Penderecki. He has also taken an active role in the creative process, having had several contemporary works written expressly for him, such as the title role in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' oratorio, Job, which he premiered in Canada, Britain, and Israel. He also sang the Canadian premiere of Songs of Milarepa by Philip Glass.
Despite an unfortunate farming accident 40 years ago that left him a partial paraplegic, he has had the opportunity to perform a number of operatic roles in concert/semi-staged performances, and enjoys guiding JMU students through successful JMU Opera Theater productions. Mr. McMillan is a pre-eminent recitalist. He has been described as an outstanding Schubertian whose voice of glowing freshness and beauty is at the service of an intelligent, lively, and distinctive personality.
In the summer, Professor McMillan is a voice instructor at the prestigious American Institute for Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria.
He holds the rank of Full Professor at JMU, and his studio is well-established as an international center for vocal excellence with students from all over the world. He also teaches both undergraduate and graduate Vocal Pedagogy, co-directs the JMU Bach Aria Group, and is the director of the Graduate Singing Health Emphasis.
