Robert Bass, the longtime music director and conductor of the Collegiate Chorale, a New York group whose performances and recordings have earned it international recognition, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 55.
Robert Bass
The cause was complications of amyloidosis, a rare disease in which abnormal proteins accumulate in the body, said Joshua Marcum, a spokesman for the chorale.
Mr. Bass conducted choral repertory and opera for the Collegiate, which was founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw, taking its name from its first rehearsal space, the Marble Collegiate Church. Mr. Bass’s discography includes the premiere recording of Strauss’s “Friedenstag” and Beethoven cantatas with Deborah Voigt.
He worked with many other top-drawer vocal soloists, in recent years including Bryn Terfel, Salvatore Licitra, Elizabeth Futral, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ewa Podles.
Under Mr. Bass the Collegiate also performed operetta and multimedia presentations like “The Juniper Tree,” a collaboration between the composers Philip Glass and Robert Moran.
Mr. Bass presented many obscure works in their New York premieres, including the American premiere of Dvorak’s “Dmitri” in 1984 and the New York premieres of Respighi’s “Fiamma” in 1987 and “Friedenstag” in 1989. In 1997 the chorale gave the first New York performance of Schubert’s “Fierrabras,” the beginning of its continuing collaboration with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall.
More recently, little-known repertory programmed by Mr. Bass included Handel’s “Jupiter in Argos,” “Le Villi” (Puccini’s first opera), Weber’s “Oberon,” Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha” and Bernstein’s “White House Cantata.”
Mr. Bass became music director of the Collegiate in 1980 when he was 26, succeeding Richard Westenburg, with whom he studied conducting at the Mannes College the New School for Music. Growing up in the Bronx and Queens, Mr. Bass sang as a boy soprano in the children’s choruses of the New York City and Metropolitan Operas.
As director of the Collegiate, Mr. Bass continued some of the traditions started by Mr. Shaw, like hiring amateurs as well as professionals.
“There is something about the passion of the amateur with the vocal expertise of the professional that makes an ideal combination,” Mr. Bass said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “That was Shaw’s philosophy eventually, and it’s one I share deeply.”
Mr. Bass was also a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the artistic director of the Olga Forrai Foundation, which supports young singers and conductors. His appearances abroad with the Collegiate included several performances at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, at the invitation of the conductor James Levine.
Mr. Bass is survived by his wife, Juliana; his children, Miranda and Jonathan; his brother, Alan; and his parents, Janice and David, all of Manhattan.
He conducted the Collegiate in Israel last month, before it began a tour with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta. He received a heart transplant in March 2007 after amyloidosis was diagnosed, and a stem-cell transplant in September.
“Having a new heart has changed everything,” he told The Times in July 2007. “I’ve just begun rehearsing again, and all of the sensations, whether they be as a musician or as a person — everything is different. There’s a lot to discover, and a lot of uncertainty at the same time.”
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