Dennis Helmrich, a native of Newark, New Jersey, began his piano studies at the age of five, and both he and his twin brother sang in the famous boychoir of St. Thomas’ Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City.  As a boy he studied solfege with Max Goberman, piano with Eugene Helmer, and flute with George Opperman and Gerald Rudy.

 

Helmrich graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree cum laude, a master’s degree with honors, and prizes from the Lockwood and Ditson foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, having studied piano with Donald Currier.  After pursuing doctoral studies at Boston University under Bela Boszormenyi-Nagy, at the age of twenty-four he joined the musical faculty of Antioch College, and subsequently served on the faculties of the State University of New York campuses at Albany and Purchase, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Manhattan School of Music, The Juilliard School, New York University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is chairman of the accompanying division of the School of Music.

 

Invited to the Tanglewood Festival in 1969 to aid in the musical preparation of Berg’s Wozzeck under Erich Leinsdorf and Michael Tilson Thomas, in the following year Helmrich was appointed Vocal Music Coach at the Tanglewood Music Center, a position he has held ever since.

 

Almost from the outset of his career Helmrich has concentrated on chamber music and the art song literature.  It is as a sonata partner and accompanist that he now makes most of his concert appearances, in a schedule which has taken him in recent years to thirty states, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, to stages such as Avery Fisher, Alice Tully, and Carnegie Halls in New York, the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Symphony Hall in Boston, and Severance Hall in Cleveland, with artists such as John Aler, Kathleen Battle, Richard Stilwell, Mary Ann Hart, Eugenia Zukerman, Claire Bloom, Carol Wincenc, Gary Schocker, Roberta Peters, Petra Lang, Roberta Alexander, Christoph Pregardien,  and the late, legendary Charles Holland.  He has appeared frequently at the Tanglewood, Bard, Yachats, and Caramoor Festivals.

 

A continuing interest in contemporary music has led Helmrich to give first performances of many American compositions.  For four years he was co-director of Hear America FirstÒ, a New York concert series devoted to the performance of American music.  He has recorded chamber music and songs on the Orion, Spectrum, Nonesuch, Chesky, Musical Heritage, Albany, Newport Classics, Delos, and Samsung labels.  His publications include translations of opera libretti and song texts, and he has created supertitles for numerous operatic productions.

 

 

 

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