Tedrin Blair Lindsay
Repetiteur, Così fan tutte
Pianist and musicologist, Tedrin Blair Lindsay was raised in Rome, Italy and has been a professional collaborative and solo pianist since the age of ten. He performs well over one hundred concerts annually, boasting a huge repertoire of vocal and Instrumental chamber works, and of his own virtuosic compositions and arrangements for both piano and voices with orchestra. His first solo album Tedrin was released in December 2015 by Liberal Art Productions, followed by a second album of hymn arrangements It Is Well With My Soul in November 2016. They are available through his website Tedrin.com, and via CD Baby, Amazon, and iTunes.
Dr. Lindsay serves on the opera faculty at the University of Kentucky as vocal coach and musical director. His UK productions have included Copland’s The Tender Land, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd, Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel and South Pacific, Thomas Pasatieri’s The Hotel Casablanca (which he also musical directed for the Seagle Music Colony in July 2009), the world premiere of Joseph Saber’s River of Time, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, Boublil & Schonberg’s Les Misérables, Flaherty & Ahrens’ Ragtime, Kern & Hammerstein’s Show Boat, Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Silent Night, Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret, Robert Ward’s The Crucible, Puccini’s La Bohème, and twenty-one incarnations of UK’s annual pops concert It’s a Grand Night for Singing. Of these productions, two have been released as studio recordings on the Albany label, The Tender Land and The Hotel Casablanca, and the National Opera Association honored The Little Prince as Best Opera Production for 2004-2005. Additionally, Dr. Lindsay performs as the continuo harpsichordist for UK’s Mozart opera productions, including Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro.
Dr. Lindsay also teaches the popular Operalex Lecture Series, and for many years has entertained during the intermission feature for the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions at both the district and regional levels. In 2007, he played in Carnegie Hall with Ario Guthrie and the UK Symphony, in 2009 he performed in the celebration Our Lincoln at the Kennedy Center, and in 2010, he played in both the opening and closing ceremonies of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. In December 2010, he participated as vocal director and orchestral pianist for the world premiere of Pasatleri’s God Bless Us Every One at Dicapo Opera in New York City, and for the subsequent recording on the Albany label. In addition to all these activities, Dr. Lindsay has been a music and theatre critic for the Lexington Herald-Leader, and founder of an entertainment company, Liberal Art Productions. Most recently, he assumed double duty as musical director and on-stage performance pianist of Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations” in AthensWest Theatre Company’s acclaimed production of 33 Variations by Moisés Kaufman in February 2016.
For two decades, a significant part of Dr. Lindsay’s career has unfolded as pianist with the American Spiritual Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Everett Mccorvey. With ASE, he has performed on major stages and music festivals throughout North America, South America, and Europe. In addition to touring and recording with ASE for about three months a year, he is currently on the board of that organization. Dr. Lindsay also travels throughout the world performing for notable public functions of the Alltech Corporation.
Additionally, Dr. Lindsay has worked with such New York companies as Bel Canto Opera, Golden Fleece Opera, Westchester Opera, Rockwell Productions, and the off-Broadway Lamb’s Theatre Company. In the early 1990s, he traveled as musical director of the first two national tours of Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain’s The Gifts of the Magi, and another national tour of Roger Miller’s Big River. He has also performed as an actor in select roles, including John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Axel in The Nerd, Steven Kodaly in She Loves Me, and a small featured role in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1978 film Luna. While in Kentucky, Dr. Lindsay has collaborated several times with Actors’ Guild of Lexington - as award-winning musical director for Sondheim’s Assassins and William Finn’s Falsettos, and as composer of an elaborate score for Angels in America: Perestroika by Tony Kushner.
Dr. Lindsay earned a Ph.D. in Musicology at UK in May 2009, with a dissertation on the topic of mid-20th century American opera. In 2008, he was named Kentucky Arts Educator of the Year by the National Society of Arts and Letters. He is also a 1984 graduate of Asbury University, B.A. in Piano Performance, and a 1987 graduate of Regent University, M.A. in Communication. A prodigious pianist since childhood, his teachers have included Aldo Ranelli and Elsie Filus in Italy, and Margaret Therkelsen and Clifford Herzer in the United States.