Hoss Brock, tenor
With feats of vocal and linguistic derring-do, tenor Harold “Hoss” Brock has become a perennial favorite with audiences and critics alike.
Having made six solo appearances with the Grant Park Music Festival, Hoss has garnered acclaim for his work in Poulenc’s Gloria and Rachmaninov’s Vespers, earning praise from critic John Von Rhein for his “plaintive, clarion singing” as well as his command of the Slavic text.
Hoss was soon after called upon to fill in for Warsaw Opera star Adam Zdunikowski in the Lira Ensemble’s annual “A Polish Christmas”. With only four days to prepare selections from Paderewski’s Manru and Moniusko’s Straszny Dwor, Brock (who can barely pronounce “Zdunikowski”, much less speak Polish) delivered a “warm and emotional rendition” (Chicago Sun-Times), earning a standing ovation from the sold out Chicago Symphony Center audience. One Polish-speaking attendee referred to his mastery of the language as “miraculous”.
Sponsored by a grant from the Metropolitan Opera Competition, Hoss traveled to Barcelona, Spain, to compete in the Francisco Viñas International Vocal Competition, from which he was promptly eliminated, and subsequently enjoyed a fabulous week of shopping, sightseeing, and sangria.
He has performed Bach's St. John Passion, Magnificat, Easter Oratorio and several other major cantatas as a regular soloist with “Bach Week” in Evanston, IL, Haydn's Die Schöpfung, at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, and made his Carnegie Hall debut in Handel's Messiah.
Appearing regularly as a guest artist with chamber ensembles including the Chicago Chamber Musicians and the Newberry Consort, his performance of the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzer with the former revealed a voice “full of nuance and depth” (the Chicago Sun Times). Hoss is also a member the the internationally recognized Chicago a cappella, for which his voices-only arrangement of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was hailed by founder Jonathan Miller as “…one of the great achievements in the ensemble’s history”.
Most recently, Hoss has performed Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Northwest Indiana Symphony, Bach’s B Minor Mass with Music of the Baroque, Rhichard Einhorn’s modern oratorio Voices of Light with the Grand Rapids Symphony” , and “Baba Yetu” from Civ IV at Video Games Live national tour in Chicago.
Hoss’s versatile artistry is perhaps best summed up by professor and microtonal composer John Eaton, who describes him as “an impeccable musician... well practically anyway”.