Brian Giebler

Brian Giebler is a tenor appearing as a soloist with A Far Cry in Boston and with the Fresno Philharmonic, singing repertoire that ranges from Bach's cantata "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott" to the high, exposed tenor solo in Orff's Carmina Burana. Listeners can expect a voice comfortable moving between the intimacy of chamber-scaled Baroque music and the theatrical demands of a large choral-orchestral work.

In the Bach cantata, expect a light, agile tone suited to the conversational give and take between voice and small string orchestra, with clear diction carrying the German text. The same program pairs that Baroque piece with newer works, including a contemporary string piece and Julius Eastman's "Gay Guerrilla," so the evening moves between centuries within a single sitting. In Fresno, the Carmina Burana appearance calls for a very different skill: the famous "Olim lacus colueram," the roasting swan's lament, sits high in the tenor range and is often sung in a deliberately strained, almost falsetto-edged voice to convey the swan's misery, a moment audiences tend to remember even if they forget the rest of the piece.