Currently embarking on his fifth season as Music Director of the nationally acclaimed and Emmy Award-winning Baltimore Choral Arts Society, conductor and composer Anthony Blake Clark enjoys a reputation as one of the freshest young voices in classical music.
Anthony Blake Clark is at home in front of orchestras and choirs alike and has worked with professional and amateur ensembles in the USA and Europe. During his tenure with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Anthony Blake Clark has consistently received rave reviews, both for work on the podium in his subscription concerts and his preparation of choruses for performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Maryland Symphony Orchestra, and the Peabody Preparatory Orchestra. Winner of the 2019-2020 American Prize in choral conducting, Clark’s leadership of Baltimore Choral Arts has also been acknowledged with another nomination for the American Prize for best choral performance, as well as the reception of the prestigious 2020 Chorus America/ASCAP Alice Parker Award. Recently, he led the ensemble on an enthusiastically received tour of the United Kingdom, culminating in a collaboration on Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He annually conducts and produces the celebrated “Christmas with Choral Arts,” televised on ABC2 which was recently nominated for an Emmy Award. The premiere choral organization in the Baltimore region, BCAS reaches more than 100,000 people each year and is an integral part of the fabric of Baltimore’s performing arts scene. His leadership of BCAS during the global Covid-19 pandemic has been noted among his peers due to innovative digital concerts and a sizeable output of online interactive content.
Mr. Clark is passionate about teaching and is the Director of Choral Activities in The George Washington University’s Corcoran School of Art and Design, where he conducts the University Singers and Women’s Ensemble, and mentors student conductors. With his university choirs, he has led performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral and the Music Center at Strathmore. Recently he was Guest Conductor/Lecturer for the Westminster Choir College Symphonic Choir.
Appreciated for his scrupulous attention to detail, Anthony Blake Clark has prepared choruses for esteemed maestri Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Simon Halsey CBE, Marin Alsop, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for concerts with internationally renowned ensembles, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (UK) and Rundfunk Chor Berlin. At New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, he was recently one of several conductors for David Lang’s 1,000-voice the public domain, working under his mentor Simon Halsey; he returned as chorusmaster for the 2018 premiere of John Luther Adams’ In the Name of the Earth. Clark is equally adept in the orchestral field and frequently appears as cover conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra, assisting conductors such as Ton Koopman, Gianandrea Noseda, Christoph Eshenbach, and Manfred Honeck. In 2021 he began his graduate studies in Orchestral Conducting at the Peabody Institute where he is a student of Marin Alsop and Joseph Young and assists them in the administration and performances of the several prestigious orchestral ensembles.
Anthony Blake Clark attended Baylor University School of Music where he studied composition. While still an undergraduate, he began his professional conducting activity by co-founding The Texas Baroque Ensemble, presenting repertoire from the Baroque and Classical eras. Mr. Clark completed a Master’s Degree in Choral Conducting under three-time Grammy Award winner Simon Halsey CBE at the United Kingdom’s University of Birmingham.
While a graduate student, he helped administer the choral ensembles on campus, conducted the University Camerata and was a member of the famed City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, singing under the batons of Sir Simon Rattle, Edward Gardiner, Andris Nelsons and Gianandrea Noseda. His time in England also included employment by the CBSO to conduct its Arts Champion Community Choir as part of an initiative to create a community Chorus network across the city, conducting the London Symphony Chorus “Come and Sing Day,” took rehearsals for the CBSO Chorus and led the Barber Festival Sinfonia in its annual summer festival performance.
Anthony Blake Clark is a frequent clinician and has led sessions for Historic Christchurch Alexandria, the Deer Creek Chorale and high school choirs in Maryland, New York and Texas. Mr. Clark also has extensive training in festivals and workshops under master tutors. He was granted a Fellowship to conduct in the Yale School of Music’s Norfolk Music Festival, led by Simon Carrington, with whom he also worked in the Sarteano Choral Workshop. In London, he participated in an orchestral conducting program that culminated in a performance of Mozart’s Symphony #41 with the London Classical Soloists.
An active composer and arranger, Anthony Blake Clark has had his scores performed in the Washington, DC area, London, Oxford, Texas, and at Prague’s Dvorák National Museum Concert Hall. Most recently, his music has been premiered by Maryland’s Baltimore Choral Arts Society and National Philharmonic Chamber Singers. In 2022 his new performance edition of Mozart’s Requiem will be performed recorded by the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and Carter Legacy Singers by Acis Records.
