Will Crutchfield

Will Crutchfield is a noted American conductor, musicologist, and vocal coach. He is the Director of Opera at the Caramoor International Music Festival and a frequent guest conductor at the Polish National Opera. From 1999 through 2005, he served as Music Director of the Opera de Colombia in Bogotá. A specialist in the bel canto repertoire, he prepared the first performing edition of Donizetti's Élisabeth ou la fille de l'exilé and conducted its world premiere at the Caramoor Festival on July 17, 2003.

In addition to his scholarly work on vocal style, Crutchfield was the youngest music critic in the history of The New York Times, where he was a regular contributor from 1983 to 1989. He has also authored numerous reviews and articles for Opera News, including his "Crutchfield at large" series.

In 2014 Crutchfield was named a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Will Crutchfield was born in 1957 in North Carolina and spent most of his childhood in Newport News, Virginia. He attended Hilton School and graduated from Warwick Hight School. He graduated from Northwestern University. His father, a Presbyterian minister, Robert Crutchfield of Newport News, Va., led a double life as a professional operatic tenor. As a youngster Will studied piano under Cary McMurran. In 1975, while still in high school, he signed on with the fledgling Virginia Opera, which had been organized the previous year in Norfolk.

Selected bibliography

• Will Crutchfield (1983), 'Vocal Ornamentation in Verdi: The Phonographic Evidence', 19th-Century Music, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Summer, 1983), pp. 3–54.
• Will Crutchfield (1989), 'The Prosodic Appoggiatura in the Music of Mozart and His Contemporaries', Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Summer, 1989), pp. 229–274.
• Will Crutchfield (1988) 'Fashion, Conviction and Performance Style in an Age of Revivals' in N. Kenyon (ed.), Authenticity and Early Music: A Symposium, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198161530

References

Notes

Sources

• "Artistic Team" profiles at Caramoor International Festival. Accessed March 28, 2014.
• Biography of Will Crutchfield on gf.org. Accessed April 16, 2014.
• Holland, Bernard, Critic-Turned-Conductor Finds A Mission in Handel's Operas, New York Times, April 3, 1995. Accessed May 6, 2008.
• Siff, Ira, Scholar (profile of Will Crutchfield), Opera News, June 2005, vol 69, no. 12. Accessed via subscription May 6, 2008.
• Tommasini, Anthony, A Donizetti Discovery, Reinterpreted, The New York Times, July 19, 2003. Accessed May 6, 2008.