• Associate Teaching Professor emeritus of Voice
• Email: rdelagarza@uri.edu

Biography

Rene De la Garza was a professor of voice at the University of Rhode Island where he also directed the opera program. His singing has been praised for its rich color and strong dramatic delivery. The talented baritone has sung with the Albany Symphony, the New Haven Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Lukas Foss, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. In the standard operatic repertory he has sung Rossini’s Figaro, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Germont in La Traviata, Ford in Falstaff, Marcello in La Boheme, the title role in Rigoletto and Baron Scarpia in Tosca. Of his performance in Boito’s Nerone, the New Yorker wrote, “Rene de la Garza, a baritone I expect to hear again, was a gleaming, potent Simon Mago.”

He has performed with the Opera Company of Boston, Boston Academy of Music, Opera New England, New Jersey Lyric Opera, Opera Providence, the Hartford Concert Opera and at Trinity Repertory Theatre in Richard Cumming’s opera Picnic which was directed by Oskar Eustis. In New York he has appeared with Repertorio Espanol as Vidal in Moreno Torroba’s Luisa Fernanda.

Frequently in demand as a solo recitalist, he has appeared at the Newport Music Festival, the Kennedy Center and on concert series throughout New England. As a soloist in orchestral and choral music, he has sung Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn Songs, Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Aston Magna orchestra, Brahm’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, soloist in Britten’s War Requiem,Vaughan Williams Hodie, Faure’s Requiem, Jesus in Bach’s St. John Passion and Mozart’s Requiem with conductor Paavo Jarvi. He has appeared with the Chatham Chorale, the Chorus of Westerly, the Rhode Island Civic Chorale, the Providence Singers, Albany Chorus Pro Musica, Capitol Hill Choral Society and the Waterbury Chorale.

De la Garza has recorded on the New World Records label in Kurt Weill’s Johnny Johnson with the Boston Camerata. Recent performances include a solo vocal recital in Barcelona, Spain in a multi-media presentation Pictures in Sound. He appeared in the premier of John Sumerlin’s opera Air at Rhode Island College. He also appeared in a concert performance of Kurt Weill’s Johnny Johnson on the Bank of America Concert Series in Boston.

Mr. de la Garza retired from the University of Rhode Island in the Spring of 2023.