Biography
Described as a performer who “gives himself completely to the singing” (Unser Lübeck), French tenor Morgan Manifacier is quickly establishing an international career as an interpreter of repertoire spanning from the Renaissance to the newest of contemporary music. A compelling and versatile singer, he has sung under the direction of conductors Daniel Beckwith, Christopher Fecteau, Arthur Haas, David Lawton, Avi Stein, Benoît Renard, and Douglas Martin.
Recent engagements have included solo performances at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Saint Hilda’s College at The University of Oxford, Lauderdale House in London, Kulturwerft Gollan with the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Lübeck, Conservatoire national supérieur d’Art dramatique in Paris, and Thayer Hall in Los Angeles.
The 2023/2024 season brings several exciting projects, starting with the performance of Ned Rorem’s Four Dialogues with soprano Kimberly Monzón and pianists Kathleen Kelly and Corinne Penner at Baylor University’s Roxy Grove Hall. Other engagements include recitals in Hilton Head, NC as part of the Performing Arts Consortium’s concert series, as well as a program for voice and organ with Vincent Pham at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Austin, TX.
On the operatic stage, Morgan has been heard in many leading roles including the title role in Pygmalion by Rameau, Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Sultan Soliman in Zaide, Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites, Agenore in Il re pastore, Siavash in the world premiere of Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s We the Innumerable, Sorcerer in Dido and Æneas, Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus, and Borsa in Rigoletto. Morgan has also been involved in the creation and performance of several operas by contemporary composers, including the roles of Man in Healing by Ed Rosenberg III, and Ararat in January 19, 2007 by Joseph Bohigian.
Don Ottavio
Don Giovanni | Mozart
His polished interpretations of diverse repertoire have brought him accolades from several competitions. He is a two-time winner of The American Prize in Voice (2021 & 2022) and a recipient of the Jere H. Brophy Scholar Award from the S. Livingston Mather Vocal Competition. Morgan also received the 2022 Duo Prize at the John Kerr Awards for English Song with his wife, pianist Corinne Penner. He was a recent finalist of the Opera Mississippi John Alexander National Vocal Competition and the Mary Trueman Art Song Vocal Competition (canceled, C-19).
Morgan is a proud alumnus of numerous international training programs, which include the Oxford Lieder Festival Mastercourse, the Franz-Schubert-Institut, SongFest as a Professional Fellow, OperaFest at the Sewanee Music Center as a Fellow Artist, Martina Arroyo’s Role Performance Program in NYC, the International Baroque Academy at Musiktheater Bavaria, and the Baroque Opera Workshop at Queen’s College. At these festivals, he worked with world-renowned musicians such as Elly Ameling, Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake, Helmut Deutsch, Wolfram Rieger, Andreas Schmidt, Birgid Steinberger, Frans Huijts, Christoph Prégardien, Kevin Murphy, Joan Dornemann, Joan Rogers, Laura Brooks Rice, Martina Arroyo, Gina Lapinski, Alan Louis Smith, Dimitri Dover, Daniela Candillari, Lydia Brown, James Cheung, Tanya Bannister, Libby Larsen, and Jake Heggie.
Pelléas
Pelléas et Mélisande | Debussy
Morgan holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where he received the Staller Scholar Award (full-tuition scholarship) and studied under the tutelage of Randall Scarlata and Jeremy Little. Other major voice teachers and coaches include Robert C. White Jr., Neal Harrelson, Timothy Long, Daniel Beckwith, and Roger Malouf. He is the grateful recipient of several career grants from the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust and The Performing Arts Consortium.
A committed and passionate educator, Morgan is highly sought-after as a teacher, coach, and clinician. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Voice at Baylor University, where he teaches applied voice and song literature. Prior to this appointment, he served as Lecturer of Music in Voice at the University of Nevada - Reno, where he taught applied voice, opera literature, lyric diction, and vocal pedagogy. He has been invited to present lectures and teach masterclasses at several universities throughout the United States, including Temple University, the University of Mobile, Concordia College, Trinity College, and Stony Brook University. As a French-repertoire coach, he was recently invited to work with singers of the OperaFest program at the Sewanee Music Center and to coach voice-piano duos at the AlpenKammerMusik Festival in Austria. He also maintains an active private voice studio.