Jean Bernard Cerin

Praised for his “burnished tone and focused phrasing,” (Chestnut Hill Local) Haitian baritone Jean Bernard Cerin performs extensively with leading early music ensembles across the United States including NYS Baroque, Philadelphia based Publick Pleasure & Choral Arts, Louisville’s Bourbon Baroque, Classical Uncorked in Seattle,  Les Délices in Cleveland, and American Bach Soloists in San Francisco to name a few. On the operatic stage, Jean Bernard has portrayed villains, buffoons, and heroes with the Aspen Opera Theater Center, Brevard’s Janiec Opera Company, Center City Opera Theater in Philadelphia,  and Opera Philadelphia, among others. Last season he made his company debut with Opera Lafayette in a modern premier of Jean-Joseph Mouret’s Les Fetes de Thalie at the Kennedy Center. Jean Bernard Cerin is the artistic director of the Lisette Project, a performance and research collective focusing on the history of classical music in Haiti.  He serves as an assistant professor and director of the Voice Program at Cornell University in Ithaca New York.

Song recitals sit at the heart of Jean Bernard’s performance output each season with his crossover duo: Kuwento Mizik, the Lisette Project, and collaborators throughout the United States. His repertoire is exceptionally vast ranging from the standard romantic and early twentieth Western Classical music literature to collaborations with living composers and explorations outside of the western canon.  In recent seasons, Jean Bernard premiered songs by Melissa Dunphy (Eat the Rich), Gilda Lyons (El Zopilote), and John Conohan (Shenandoh & Big Rock Candy Mountains), Don Saint Pierre (Rumi Songs), and Mark Rimple (Politic Bodies).