Assistant Professor, School of Music, Theatre & Dance
About
Valdis Jansons is a baritone, vocal educator, conductor, and stage director assistant. After making his opera debut in 2002 and winning numerous international singing competitions, Jansons has performed worldwide in repertoire spanning early Mozart, contemporary opera, jazz, and musical theatre. With more than 50 leading roles in his repertoire, Jansons is a sought-after artist for his ability to portray challenging and vocally demanding eponymous characters, such as Britten’s Billy Budd, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Szymanowsky’s King Roger, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Verdi’s Macbeth and Rigoletto.
Jansons’ Don Giovanni was featured in the New York Times Global Arts Guide. His appearances at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and as soloist baritone in Orff’s Carmina Burana at Teatro San Carlo in Naples are regularly showcased on Italian television. In addition, his appearances in Mozart’s La Finta Semplice, Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata, and the musical theater show Oz on the Road by Bruno Coli have been released on DVD.
Jansons has sung 65 roles in more than 70 theaters worldwide. Most recently, he appeared as Zurga in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers at Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo, Spain; as Tonio in Leoncavallos’s Pagliacci at Slovenian National Opera; as Macbeth in Verdi’s eponymous opera at Grand Théâtre Massenet in Saint-Etienne, France; as Rigoletto at Opera pa Skäret in Sweden; as baritone soloist in Carmina Burana with Santa Barbara Symphony; and as a soloist in the concert The Echoes of Tang Poems with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Lincoln Center in New York. With the Philadelphia Orchestra, Jansons also performed a world premiere of Mason Bates’s Spring River Flowers by Moonlight at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing and at Marian Anderson Hall at Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
As a chamber music interpreter, he performed Mahler’s Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge, Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, and an extensive series of Neapolitan songs, which play a particular role in his artistic expression.
As a conductor, Jansons has directed three choirs at the University of California, Santa Barbara: Lumina, Singing Gauchos, and Chamber Choir. As a stage director assistant, he worked in the UCSB production of Evan Mack’s opera Lucinda y Las Flores de la Nochebuena.
Jansons received a BM and MM from Conservatorio Arrigo Boito di Parma, Italy, and an MM and DMA at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Additionally, he attended Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro, Italy; Accademia Pucciniana in Torre del Lago, Italy; and Verbier Festival Summer Academy in Verbier, Switzerland.
