Baritone John Buffett enjoys a versatile career lending his “warm tone and ringing top notes” (Salt Lake Tribune) to music from the early baroque through the 21st century. Recent solo engagements include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Flagstaff Symphony, Bach’s St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion with Musica Angelica, The American Festival Chorus, and the Oregon and Charlotte Bach festivals, Copland’s Old American Songs with the Pacific Symphony, and Handel’s Messiah with Seraphic Fire, the LA Master Chorale and the Long Beach Camerata. Solo engagements during the 23/24 season include St. John Passion with the Cal Poly Bach Festival, Handel’s Messiah with the LA Master Chorale, Long Beach Camerata, and the New West Symphony, St. Matthew Passion and Messiah with the Messiah Festival of the Arts (Kansas), BWV 182 with Musica Angelica, Monteverdi and D’India with Bach Collegium San Diego, Bach’s Coffee Cantata and other arias with Con Gioia, and multiple engagements with Seraphic Fire.
Buffett has been a featured soloist with the Pacific Symphony, the Utah, San Antonio, Winston-Salem, and Syracuse Symphonies, The Mark Morris Dance Group, The Pacific Chorale, and the Rochester Philharmonic. He has also been a featured performer with many leading Early Music Ensembles including: Apollo’s Fire, Ars Lyrica, Bach Collegium San Diego, The Boston Early Music Festival, Con Gioia, The Charlotte Bach Academy, The Oregon Bach Festival, Musica Angelica and Tesserae Baroque. Also an accomplished Chamber musician, he regularly performs with some of America’s best choral ensembles like Seraphic Fire, The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Additionally, he sings in LA studio sessions for Film/TV.
Solo appearances at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center highlight other important performances. Buffett, currently on voice faculty at UCLA’s Herb Albert School of Music, CSU Long Beach’s Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, and for the Professional Choral Institute at the Aspen Music Festival, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music.