Mark Walters

January 07, 2007 | Local Baritone is One Well-Traveled Performer
Kirsten A. Holmsted - The Daily News, Jacksonville, NC

Baritone Mark Walters knew when he started his career as an opera singer that the more successful he became the more he would travel. “I wanted to see the world,” said the Iowa native, who now calls Jacksonville his home. Success has definitely arrived for Walters. His calendar has filled up with requests to perform throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Coming off a busy fall schedule, Walters will perform a concert next Sunday at 3 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church in Jacksonville before embarking on a full 2007 schedule. He will be accompanied on the piano by John O’Brien, professor of accompanying in the department of vocal studies at East Carolina University. The Jacksonville concert will include “Four Serious Songs” by Johannes Brahms, “Old American Songs” by Aaron Copland, arias and songs from operas and musicals, and a song by Coastal Carolina Community College music instructor Michael Daugherty. Walters’ local performances have become an annual highlight for area music enthusiasts.

Walters and I talked by phone in mid-December while he was taking a train from New Jersey, where he sublets an apartment, to New York City, Walters, who sublets an apartment in New Jersey, often travels to New York, where he rehearses with various voice coaches. In mid-December, he visited with Mitchell Cirker, an accomplished pianist with lots of knowledge in German language and style. Mitchell helped Walters rehearse the Brahms compositions for the Jacksonville recital. A couple of days later, Walters met with another coach, Stephen Sulich of New York. They worked on Walters’ opera audition repertoire. Years of coaching and rehearsing prepared Walters for performances in Alaska and Japan last year, and for an upcoming year of operas. But the baritone is on his own when it comes to taking in the sights and the local culture.

Last November, Walters performed in an all-Verdi concert in Anchorage, Alaska. He stayed for a week with the same family that hosted him for six weeks in 1997. A highlight of the trip was watching a moose snack on the trees outside the theater in downtown Anchorage. Because it costs so much to import products to Alaska, a lot of goods are homemade or home grown, including the brew. Walters enjoyed sampling the local beverages and attending regional celebrations. His first visit to Anchorage coincided with the fur rendezvous, an annual festival honoring the fur trade, and the Iditarod Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome.

In early December Walters traveled to Osaka, Japan, to perform as a soloist in Mozart’s “Requiem.” Walters first traveled to Japan in 2004 to meet his new in-laws. The singer is married to Ayumi Nakamae, a Coastal Carolina music instructor and native of Japan. This time Walters traveled by himself. He was grateful that one of Nakamae’s friends met him at the airport in Osaka. During his five-day visit to Japan, Walters familiarized himself with the subway and was fortunate to come into contact with Japanese who knew just enough English to help him figure things out. His mother-in-law, who doesn’t speak any English, brought a translator to the concert so they could talk. Other highlights of his Japanese trip included drinking sake with the conductor after the performances and networking with musicians. During his 2004 trip to Japan, Walters auditioned with a renowned baritone, Tsutomu Masuko. That has turned out to be a fruitful audition. Masuko has invited Walters back in 2008 to perform in Handel’s “Serse” Opera at Sakai City Opera. The performances in Osaka could be followed up with a performance of “Serse” during a festival in Mallorca, Spain.

To keep his career on the upswing, Walters hopes to meet more people like Masuko, who has indicated he will introduce Walters to the artistic director of the Prague State Opera in the Czech Republic. If this happens, and Walters flies to Prague for an audition, he will try to set up another audition during a layover in London. At this stage in his career, Walters has performed in most states in the U.S., and in many small towns and big cities. He continues to enjoy driving to his destinations, visiting new places and meeting people all over the country and world who share his passion for opera. The down side of Walters’ extensive traveling, though, is being away from home. “But I’m kind of used to it now,” said Walters, who has become accustomed to staying in hotels, apartments and at host’s homes during the past 17 years. While in Jacksonville during January and February, Walters will spend much of his time preparing for four upcoming operas and two musicals.

The baritone’s first appearance in North Carolina will be with the Greensboro Opera for its 25th anniversary gala concert in March. From March to August, he has performances scheduled back to back from the deep South to the Midwest to the Northwest. Want to go?

The Coastal Carolina Community College music department will sponsor a performance by baritone Mark Walters (shown above) Jan. 14 at 3 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church in Jacksonville. Walters will be accompanied by pianist John O’Brien. For more, call 938-6341.

September 12, 2004 | A Pretty Girl, A French Horn - And A Career
Kirsten A. Holmsted - The Daily News, Jacksonville, NC

It wasn't a love for music that first attracted baritone Mark Walters to his profession. That would be too simple - and boring. Walters started singing as a child in the Lutheran church. When he entered the fourth grade, his mom encouraged him to join the school band. She felt that she had missed out on an opportunity by not playing an instrument as a child and wanted her son to have a chance that she never had. But Walters didn't share her interest, at least not that year.

The following year was a different story. That's when the Baptist preacher's daughter, who lived next door, joined the band. Suddenly, playing the French horn became quite appealing. Walters' crush on the preacher's daughter waned when he discovered she had kissed another boy in class during a movie. Fortunately, by that time the budding musician had developed a genuine enthusiasm for the French horn that would span a decade. His formal training had begun.

At the University of Northern Iowa, Walters earned a bachelor's degree in music, with an emphasis in the French horn. He also took some voice lessons. But it was the university's production of "La Boheme" that would leave a lasting impression, setting up the shift from French horn to opera. He earned a master's degree in vocal performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music and is currently working on his doctorate in vocal performance at Florida State University while studying for the role of the count in "Marriage of Figaro." It will be performed in Ohio.

Walters has been singing professionally for 15 years. He debuted at Carnegie Hall in Orff's "Carmina Burana" and the "Faure Requiem" in May 2003. Next Saturday, he will perform a variety of music - including arias, musical theater pieces, and duets (with Coastal Carolina Community College Music Instructor Ayumi Nakamae) - at 8 p.m. in United Trinity Methodist Church. Then he travels to Dayton, Ohio, for three recitals, followed by an opening in Sarasota, Fla. Walters is 6 feet 2 inches tall with blond hair down to his shoulders, blue eyes, and gold-rimmed glasses (think Russell Crowe from the movie, "Master and Commander"). Still in college when he realized his interest in opera, Walters applied for an apprenticeship with the Dorian Opera Theatre at Luther College in Iowa. As a participant in the program, he thought, If they can do it, so can I. "That was the turning point," he said. Performing didn't come naturally, or easily, at first. Walters recalled his first opera workshop class at Northern Iowa. He played Rolfe in "The Sound of Music" and sang the duet, "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." "I was so stiff," he said. "I couldn't move. The girl who played Liesl had to drag me by the arm across the stage." Walters said his hands shook and his knees trembled in early productions.

Although he remains somewhat shy, he projects a quiet confidence. Anyone who saw him perform arias from "The Barber of Seville" during his concert last September in Jacksonville will attest to Walters' poise and talent. Since his career has taken off, the highly sought after baritone has performed in more than 50 operatic and musical theater roles, and 20 oratorio works. Just this past season his roles have included Clark in the premiere of "Corps of Discovery" (the Lewis and Clark expedition), Papageno in "Die Zauberflote," Ping in "Turandot," Schaunard in "La Boheme" and Marcello in "La Boheme." Walters has been seen in leading roles with numerous opera houses, including Cleveland, Nashville, Sarasota and Knoxville. Walters has also performed in the Bloomington Early Music Festival, the Pine Mountain Music Festival and Dorian Opera Theater. In competition, he's been a district winner of the Metropolitan Opera Competition and twice a finalist in the MacAllister Awards.

Early in his training, opera raised Walters' awareness of some interests that he didn't even realize he had. He could play the French horn and continued to develop his voice, but he became eager to master several other skills, including singing in foreign languages, memorization, and acting. He applied discipline and hard work, two traits the musician credits to his German protestant ancestry, to achieve these abilities.

"I think I've been achieving success not because of any one immense talent or ability, but because opera requires all the areas that I'm reasonably good at," Walters said. "There are many people more talented than me, but I'm a hard worker with a reasonable amount of ambition." Now, Walters is his own master and commander. Acting, singing and memorizing are his job, and he wants to be the best he can be. When he rehearses for an opera, especially if it's in a foreign language, Walters begins preparing months in advance. In the early stages of his career as an opera singer, learning foreign languages was the hardest part. Since then, he has grown comfortable singing in Italian, German, and French. Last year, Walters was asked to sing in Italy. He had to decline that offer because of a previous engagement but he hopes to receive a similar invitation this year.

Now the difficult or time-consuming aspect is the memorization. Walters is currently preparing for his upcoming role as the Count in the "Marriage of Figaro," a role he has played in English but never in Italian. Each day he spends his mornings translating and memorizing dialogue from Italian to English. He sings in the afternoons and studies in the evenings. The schedule is demanding but it's also one for which he is familiar. In preparation for an earlier role in "The Magic Flute" in Sarasota, Walters learned 40 minutes of dialogue in German.

Walters said he has "reasonable goals" for his future. He wants to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and with the New York City Opera. He would also like to move into more vocally dramatic roles.

Maybe it doesn't matter who or what attracts individuals to their passions. While his harmless affection for a preacher's daughter served as the impetus for Walters' musical career, it is a longstanding love affair with opera that keeps the baritone singing - and the audience longing for more.