Contact

 

frederic.chrislip@gmail.com

(607) 434 5463

Biography

 

Frederic Chrislip was born and raised in Oklahoma. He was awarded a National Merit Scholarship and graduated from the School of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. At the beginning of his sophomore year, he joined the Chicago Symphony Chorus, where he received some of his most valuable training and filled his ear with the highest levels of music performance. When the orchestra and chorus prepared the Bach St. Matthew Passion, Sir Georg Solti chose Chrislip from the chorus for the small solo role of False Witness. (Is he the only person who both sang and played solos under Solti with the Chicago Symphony?)

Chrislip left the Chicago Symphony Chorus after seven seasons and almost immediately began an eleven-year relationship as first-call guitarist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which continued even though he soon moved to New York to advance his recital career. Around this time, he performed some sixty solo recitals in twenty states, singing classical repertoire while accompanying himself on guitar. He also participated in four recordings with the Chicago Symphony under Sir Georg Solti, James Levine, and Claudio Abbado.

He has had many opportunities to play Mahler’s Symphony No. 7: on guitar with the New York Philharmonic and the symphonies of Chicago and Pittsburgh; and on mandolin with Rochester, Syracuse, Cleveland, and Boston, including a recording under Seiji Ozawa. He has played mandolin and saw for George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children with the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, both under Zubin Mehta. He has played at Carnegie Hall as an extra player with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Other orchestras with which he has played include Brooklyn, Minnesota, Phoenix, Seattle, St. Louis, and the Santa Fe Opera. He has played in master classes under Christopher Parkening, Alice Artzt, and John Duarte.

In 1995 Chrislip was selected as an artist fellow for the Bach Aria Festival and Institute, singing arias from Bach cantatas. He has also studied singing in two seasons at Tanglewood and in master classes at the Scotia Festival, Westminster Choir College, and Oberlin College under John McCollum, Martin Katz, Dalton Baldwin, and Richard Miller. He now performs solo songs accompanying himself on the lute in recital and at early music festivals, where he receives coaching from top figures in the early music world.

Recent solo performances

 

Earlville Opera House, Earlville, New York, 2024
Classical Guitar Society of Upstate New York
“Unique Ric Chrislip opened the program’s 2nd half with a collection of mesmerizing early music for lute and voice - proving himself adept as both a lutenist and vocalist.”

Boston Early Music Festival fringe concerts (voice and lute), 2017, 2019, and 2021 (virtual)

Union College, Schenectady, 2020
Classical Guitar Society of Upstate New York

Saint James Lake Delaware, 2015, 2016, 2019

Windfall Dutch Barn, Cherry Valley, New York, 2019

Hartwick College showcase recital (voice, lute, and guitar), November 2016