Howard Bender began his 30-year career in the music industry with a Bachelor of Music and a two year Postgraduate Diploma in Voice from Manhattan School of Music, followed by a residency at The Juilliard American Opera Center. During his student years, he supported himself as Cantor of two major New York Synagogues. He then embarked upon a 28 year career as a tenor in the US, Canada, Italy, Germany, and Israel that included four seasons at the Metropolitan Opera, debuting in the world premiere of John Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles under the baton of James Levine.  He was a frequent guest at the opera houses of Montréal, Philadelphia, Houston, St. Louis, Miami, Washington, Pittsburgh, Portland, Spoleto USA, Düsseldorf, Spoleto Festival di Due Mondi, Palermo and Tel Aviv and appeared with the symphony orchestras of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Jerusalem and the Israel Philharmonic. He has collaborated with James Levine, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Richard Bonynge, James Conlon, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Edoardo Müller, Lukas Foss, Asher Fisch, Gerard Schwarz, Harry Bicket, Robert Spano, John Mauceri, Stephen Lord and Frédéric Chaslin.  His discography includes the music of Menotti, Offenbach, Humperdinck and Musgrave.

 

He became an arts administrator in 1998, serving first as Director of Artistic Administration at Italy’s Umbria Music Fest, a position he held through 2008, when he became Artistic Consultant. In 2000, he facilitated a sister city relationship with the Umbrian town of Todi and its Umbria Music Fest, ultimately creating Todi Music Fest* in America, the first summer music festival in the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia. The festival was created as a cultural centerpiece for the City of Portsmouth, to develop and brand its arts profile in the region and draw arts patrons to multiple venues in Olde Towne, its historic downtown core. As founding Festival Director, he created the Business Plan, assembling the Business Team and the Board of Directors. In eight years, he established a level of artistic excellence and financial stability that ranked the Festival among the region’s five top performing arts organizations, growing the annual fund by 60%. His innovative programming and fundraising skills led southeastern Virginia’s arts magazine, Port Folio Weekly to classify the Festival as a “Major Arts Organization.” Mr. Bender was featured in Virginia Inside Business: “Todi Music Fest hits a high note - Use of local media plays an integral part in fundraising” – July, 2005. He was responsible for overseeing the work of more than 200 performers, marketing professionals, stage technicians, office staff and volunteers on a year round basis.

 

* A sister city, ”Spoleto-like” music festival, twinned with the annual Umbria Music Fest, in the Umbrian region of Italy.

 

The Festival brought over one hundred performances of diverse entertainment to the region during July in fifteen different venues throughout five cities including orchestral, pops, oratorio, chamber music, ballet, modern dance, jazz, gospel, salsa, oratorio, and bluegrass.  Mr. Bender produced such Hampton Roads “firsts” as Aida, Nabucco, Manon Lescaut, Eugene Onegin (the first Russian language opera produced in Virginia), Peter Nero and the Virginia Symphony, Paul Taylor Dance and a new, locally constructed production of La Fille du Régiment. National sponsors included two major airlines, five major hotel chains, Maersk, Northrop Grumman, BASF, GEICO, Dominion, USAA, Cox Communications, Coca-Cola, Target, SYSCO and ReMax, as well as the National Italian-American and Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundations and six local and state government agencies.

 

During his tenure as Festival Director to 2008, he participated in the greater Hampton Roads arts community as pianist/vocal coach, chorus master, Master Class instructor, lecturer on symphonic and operatic subjects, facilitator of Board retreats and telethon host for WHRO/National Public Radio-TV. Mr. Bender’s ecumenical work in southeastern Virginia’s prominent religious institutions garnered him recognition by Coretta Scott King.  As Cantor and Cantor-in-Residence, he has served synagogues nationally in New York City, Miami, Cleveland, Chicago and Norfolk, and internationally in Jerusalem, Düsseldorf, Montréal and Winnipeg.

 

His language facility includes Italian, German, French and Hebrew as well as expertise in the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian translation. In 2009 he joined Cleveland’s JD Mason & Associates, a global non-profit management consultant firm as Executive Vice President/COO. Mr. Bender is a native of Cleveland, Ohio.