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Photo: Louis Belloisy (click to enlarge)
     In a diversified repertoire encompassing oratorio, art song, chamber music,  opera and musical theater,  baritone Paul Laurence Fletcher's performances have elicited descriptions such as "superb" (American Record Guide), "vocally alluring" (The Farmington Valley Herald), "beautiful and clear" (The Danbury News-Times), "[with] great power" (The Stamford Advocate), and "at once youthful, virile, impassioned and seductive" (The Hartford Courant). In his performance of Mozart's concert aria Or che il dover with the Fairfield Chamber Orchestra, The Greenwich News found a "flowingly graceful voice with an earnest, convincing, and rich quality."

     Mr. Fletcher has appeared as a featured soloist with Orchestra New England, The American Classical Orchestra, Yale Collegium Musicum, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Pro Arte Singers and many others. He is a member of Voce and Voce Chamber Artists, and was chosen by National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen to perform the CD premiere of the composer's  dramatic solo setting of A.E. Hausman's Be Still, My Soul, Be Still as well as the solo arrangement of his beloved O Magnum Mysterium on Voce's critically acclaimed 2010 release, Sure On This Shining Night, recorded in collaboration withe the composer.  In the fall of 2011 Mr. Fletcher was one of 24 select singers from across the U.S. chosen to be founding members of a new professional ensemble, the Yale Choral Artists.

Other recent solo credits include  Messiah with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Brahms' Ein Deutches Requiem with Voce, Elijah with The Greater Middletown Chorale and Eastern Connecticut Symphony Chorus, Kurt Weill's Walt Whitman Songs with the Wesleyan University Orchestra, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass with the Concert Choir of Northeastern Connecticut and  Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs with the Willimantic Symphony Orchestra.

    Mr. Fletcher is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and has performed leading and supporting roles in productions at Lamb's Theatre (Times Square), Theatre 315 (West 47th Street, New York), Downtown Cabaret Theatre, Theatre on the Green, Hartford Stage, The Shubert Opera, Opera Theatre of Connecticut, The Ivoryton Playhouse and others, with Tony (West Side Story), Macheath (Threepenny Opera), Lancelot (Camelot), Emile de Becque (South Pacific), and Cervantes/Don Quixote (Man of La Mancha) among his credits.

  Paul is an honors graduate of Abilene Christian University (Bachelor of Music Education) and won a full opera scholarship/assistantship to The Hartt School, where he took top prizes for operatic and art song performance while earning his Master of Music Degree in Voice. He teaches privately and is on the voice faculty at Calvary Music School in Stonington.