MYSTIC JOURNEYS

Brent Baldwin is artistic director and conductor of Panoramic Voices, an Austin-based adventurous choral collective that thrives on a “music without borders” approach to music making. Brent is an award-winning conductor, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, arranger, and composer. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied conducting with Craig Hella Johnson and Daniel Johnson. As a director and bandleader, he has participated in numerous tours across the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. A fierce advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Baldwin has directed and performed over forty world premieres. His past musical collaborations include projects and performances with Big Star Third, Trail of Dead, Peter Buck (R.E.M.), M. Ward, Laurel Aitken, Golden Hornet, Austin Chamber Music Center, Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee, Jody Stephens (Big Star), Austin Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Bach Festival, Tommy Stinson (Replacements, Guns n’ Roses), and Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Shulamit Ran and Caroline Shaw.

In 2014, the Austin Critics’ Table Awards selected the Baldwin-led Mozart Requiem Undead as Best Choral Performance. In the same year, he was also featured on the cover of the national publication The Voice, dubbed “Best Choral Wrangler” by the Austin Chronicle in their Best of Austin awards, and performed in front of 50,000 music fans in Taiwan at the Taichung Jazz Festival as guitarist for Noise Revival Orchestra.

Mr. Baldwin has called Austin home for more than 20 years and is deeply invested in its larger arts community. Mr. Baldwin’s advocacy of original, present-day artists, coupled with his commitment to the emerging arts scene, has navigated him into direct mentorship roles. His students have gone on to obtain regional and national success — including Austin Critics Table Awards, Grammy Awards and performances at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Baldwin has produced the Mostly Music Marathon benefiting AIDS Services of Austin and serves on the Advisory Board for the SIMS Foundation, which provides affordable mental health services for Austin musicians.

Faith DeBow has served as collaborative pianist and Emerging Artist Coordinator on the leadership team of the Victoria Bach Festival since 2010.  Faith is sought after for both solo and collaborative performances as well as choral accompaniment and teaching. She enjoys a vibrant career based in the Central Texas region. Her playing has been heard in outer space at the International Space Station, performing Christmas music on video for astronauts working there during the holiday season.

Ms. DeBow has performed with opera singer Renée Fleming; conductors Peter Bay, Anton Coppola, Craig Hella Johnson, and Sebastian Lang-Lessing; and has performed the works of composers Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, Roberto Sierra, and Michael Schelle. She has also premiered works by Donald Grantham, Cary Ratcliff, Jake Runestad, and John Muehleisen. In 2012, Ms. DeBow commissioned and premiered Brilliant Sky, a solo piano work by Colin Sorgi. She has served as rehearsal pianist in premieres composed by Stephen Paulus, Kevin Puts, Nico Muhly, Tarik O’Regan, Dan Welcher, Eric Banks, and Robert Kyr.

Faith maintains a longstanding collaboration with the Grammy®-winning choral ensemble Conspirare. Ms. DeBow has performed with the choir in Texas cities such as San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Fredericksburg, Round Top, and its home base of Austin. Outside the state, she toured the greater US: New York City, San Francisco, Omaha, Oklahoma City, and Goshen (Indiana); internationally, Copenhagen, Paris, and Saint-Lo (France).

Ms. DeBow also regularly performs with Musica Viva’s Susan Doering (violin), and Dieter Wulfhorst (cello) across California’s Central Valley.

In 2010, she traveled to Reykjavik to collaborate with Tim Buzbee, Principal Tuba of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. DeBow and Buzbee gave a recital at the Hallgrimskirkja national cathedral and recorded a CD for Albany Records, Angels and Demons.

Her performances have been broadcast on PBS, NPR’s Performance Today, Georgia Public Radio, KPAC San Antonio, KMFA Austin, and Victoria Public Radio. Ms. DeBow appeared in Conspirare’s one-hour television special for PBS broadcast nationally in March 2009; the CD of that concert, A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert, was nominated for a 2010 Grammy® Award for “Best Classical Crossover Album.”

Faith DeBow has also recorded for Harmonia Mundi with Conspirare (Pablo Neruda: The Poet Sings, 2015 and Samuel Barber: An American Romantic, 2012) and for Albany Records with tuba player Tim Buzbee (Angels and Demons, 2012, featuring Sonata del Angel Caido by Ferrer Ferran; Apocalyptic Voices by James Meador; and Three Miniatures for Tuba and Piano by Anthony Plog).

She teaches class piano and collaborative piano as a Senior Lecturer at Texas State University, a position she has held since 2001. She also accompanies instrumental students at Trinity University and is the pianist for the boy choir at the historic San Antonio Academy. Ms. DeBow often plays orchestral keyboard with the Austin Symphony Orchestra.