Life-long church musician, Dan Foster (he/him), director of music and founder of Saint John’s Collegium is a tenor, conductor, and multi-keyboard artist who’s been singing and playing in church since before he can remember.
In addition to leading his beloved church choir at St. John’s, he appears frequently as a tenor soloist, organist, and harpsichordist with many prestigious groups including the Cathedral Choir at The Cathedral of All Saints, Cantilena in collaboration with Cambridge Concentus baroque orchestra, Crescendo, and Music in Somerset Hills.
A lifelong advocate for contemporary composers, Mr. Foster conducted the premieres of Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis by Timothy Luby; Magnificat and Te Deum by Larry G. Nuckolls; and The Joseph Triptych and Canticles for Advent: The Season of the Now by Thomas F. Savoy, who afterward wrote:
«… [he] brings his considerable musicianship and artistic sensitivity to bear on satisfying the vision of the composer. This is one of his greatest gifts, sublime in nature, but of immense artistic integrity.»
In January of 2012, Mr. Foster made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut leading Aœde Consort in the world premiere of Vladimir Pleshakov’s choral music:
«Mæstro Dan Foster is indeed a find…he conducted the works like a young Robert Shaw. The first beautiful vocal sounds that came from the Aœde Consort floating out into the vast space and thrilling acoustics of Carnegie brought the audience immediately into a spiritual experience.» – John Paul Keeler, The Scene, New York, New York.
Mr. Foster engages in critical research to revive forgotten masterpieces of early music. Aœde Consort’s 2009 revival of Grand Motet “Exaudiat te Dominus,” by Jean-Baptiste Lully was the first performance in the Americas and produced the first publication of modern performing scores for this great work. This and his other authoritative editions are published by Schirmer Cengage at Yale University.
Mr. Foster is a teaching artist with Albany Pro Musica, the choir director and tenor soloist at Congregation Berith Sholom, the director of the Saint Rose Symphony Orchestra, and a collaborative pianist/repertoire coach at Skidmore College. He sings and plays frequently at the Cathedral of All Saints where his wife Sabrina also sings, and accompanies a large number of students from the Empire State Youth Orchestra.
He and his wife, soprano Sabrina Elyse Manna, are restoring an 1882 Eastlake Style Victorian home in Troy, New York, which is more work than he imagined (and he imagined it would be considerable).