Director · Tenor · Liturgical reconstruction
Christopher Fülling
Stage director and tenor specializing in Early Music, Gregorian chant, and historically informed liturgical reconstruction.
Based in LA and KC, he restores sacred music to its ritual setting. His work spans Vespers for the Polish royal court of c. 1615, chant liturgies celebrated with Italian bishops, and radical stagings of Baroque repertoire. As a tenor he has performed and recorded across Europe with conductors including Gabriel Garrido, Daniel Reuss, and Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo.
Selected work
Educated at Princeton and the California Institute of the Arts. Co-founder and original artistic director of the Art Monastery in Italy and The Alchemy in Los Angeles.
Kansas City: Cathedral & Te Deum
Current work with the Cathedral in Kansas City and the Te Deum choir.
Roles
Director
Roles
Concept creator
Christopher Fülling has co-created a range of musical staging projects, serving as creator (concept, lyrics and text, compiler and arranger), director, music director, and performer (tenor, physical theatre). Some works are built for repeat performance and are available for future engagements. Others were one-off, site-specific works.
Kinds of work
New compositions, by one creative team or several composers, sometimes with a little extant source material, brought together into one new piece.
New compilations of existing material from diverse sources, often with some new composition, into a coherent new whole.
Liturgical reconstructions, a kind of new compilation, organize extant sources according to historically informed rules. They are new because they haven't been heard this way for hundreds of years.
Extant complete works get radical staging interpretations that leave the music intact, sometimes with new text that reframes it.
Pasticcio: an assemblage of musical works and acts into one harmonious evening, recombined differently for each performance.
Roles
Music director
Roles
Experience designer
Roles
Speaker & teacher
Speaker
Gregorian chant. Hands-on teaching that gives historical context and gets everyone singing, to understand how the practice of chant interacts with the notation systems that tried to capture it. Formats in Los Angeles, Denver, and Rome have ranged from short crash courses to multi-day workshops.
Art Monasticism. Lecture-concerts and interactive demonstrations of the principles of art monasticism in dozens of cities in the US and Europe.
Performing Atlantis. Research on the cultural fascination with Atlantis, presented to audiences including the Metageum conference in Malta.
Teacher
Biomechanics for musicians · Physical theatre · Ritual theatre · Embodied voice
Roles
Tenor
American tenor specializing in 17th-century repertoire and Gregorian chant.
Christopher Fülling performs early sacred music across Europe and has recorded with conductors including Gabriel Garrido, Daniel Reuss, and Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo. Educated at Princeton and CalArts, he moved to Europe in 1999 as a Beebe Fellow to study Baroque voice with Max van Egmond and Peter Kooy, and continued in Medieval music with Eric Mentzel.
Sacred & concert
Stage roles (selected)
Education
Ensembles: Hartkeriana (Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo), Cappella Amsterdam (Daniel Reuss), Ensemble Elyma / Coro Madrigalia (Gabriel Garrido), Los Angeles Master Chorale (Paul Salamunovich), Santa Cruz Chorale (Paul Vorwerk).
Project portfolio · Liturgical reconstruction
17thC Vespers
Liturgical reconstructions that restore the original ritual context to spectacular Early Baroque music. The project began with the founding of the Baroque orchestra Cappella Confluentes in Koblenz by music director Jörn Hinnerk Andresen and artistic director Christopher Fülling. It featured modern premieres of Asprilio Pacelli, Italian maestro di cappella to the Polish court, whose eight-part double-choir Vesper psalms were rediscovered by soprano and musicologist Maria Skiba.
Pacelli Project concerts. Torri Superiore & Calvi dell'Umbria, 2009
- Composers
- Pacelli, Marenzio, de Rore, Schütz
- Music director
- Christopher Fülling
Lutheran Ascension Vespers. Sophienkirche, Berlin, 2004
- Composers
- Schütz, Scheidt, Schein, Praetorius
- Concept & liturgy
- Christopher Fülling
- Music directors
- Jörn Hinnerk Andresen; Thomas Noll
Easter Vespers at the Polish Royal Court of Zygmunt III Waza, c. 1615. Zwickau, Waldheim & Berlin, 2004
- Liturgical reconstruction
- Christopher Fülling, Maria Skiba, Matthew Baker
- Music director
- Jörn Hinnerk Andresen
- Director
- Christopher Fülling
Sunday Vespers for Quadragesima, c. 1615. Maria Laach, Andernach & Utrecht, 2004
- Liturgical reconstruction
- Christopher Fülling, Maria Skiba, Matthew Baker
- Music directors
- Jörn Hinnerk Andresen; Sebastian Holz
- Director
- Christopher Fülling
Project portfolio · Gregorian chant in liturgy
Chant
Performing Gregorian and early Medieval chant in its liturgical context restores the sublimity of the rite. Many of these services were led by Professor Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo of Hartkeriana and the Schola Cantorum Amsterdam, with whom Fülling sang Vespers every Sunday at the Nicolaaskerk. At the Art Monastery in Italy, the community sang Compline nightly, and celebrated Vespers or Mass with three Italian bishops. Fülling's Jacobusvesper returned the virtuosic early polyphony of the Codex Calixtinus to its original setting, Vespers for the Feast of St. James.
Vespro dei Martiri. Convento di S. Martino, Orvieto, 2012
- Celebrant
- Bishop of Orvieto
- Music director
- Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo
Mass. Labro, 2011
- Celebrant
- Bishop of Terni
- Music director
- Christopher Fülling
Vespro di S. Francesco. Calvi dell'Umbria, 2008
- Music
- Franciscan chant for the Feast of St. Francis
- Music director
- Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo
Vespro di S. Pancrazio. Calvi dell'Umbria, 2007
- Music director
- Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo
Jacobusvesper. Nicolaaskerk, Amsterdam, 2003
- Music
- Codex Calixtinus: chant and polyphony for the Feast of St. James
- Music director
- Christopher Fülling
Grÿndevesper. Oerol Festival, Terschelling, 2003
- Music
- Gregorian Compline with Swedish and English Medieval music
- Music directors
- Christopher Fülling & Tarquinia Hill
Project portfolio · Baroque opera compilation
Canticum
The Biblical Song of Songs as a Baroque opera set in the women's court of King Solomon, compiled from 17th-century sacred settings by Grandi, Schütz, Monteverdi, Cima, Palestrina, d'India, Hammerschmidt, and others. Every musician is onstage and in character, and the ancient court is seen through the prism of 1650s Venice.
Semi-staged concert. Rome & Labro, 2010
- Director & music director
- Christopher Fülling
Dramatic workshop. Seattle, 2006
- Director
- Grant Herreid
- Music director
- Stephen Stubbs
Project portfolio · Chant & dance
Obscura
With Cappella Amsterdam and Dansgroep Krisztina de Châtel: Gregorian chant and Medieval music, Nicolas Gombert, and new music by Hans Nieuwenhuis.
25-city tour of the Netherlands, 2002
- Concept
- Krisztina de Châtel, Daniel Reuss, Christopher Fülling
- Choreographer
- Krisztina de Châtel
- Music director
- Daniel Reuss
Project portfolio · Baroque opera, Long Beach Opera
LA Indian Queen
Purcell's last work, incidental music to Dryden's fabricated war between Incas and Aztecs, reimagined with Guillermo Gómez-Peña. The production made the colonial gaze of the original its subject, setting historically informed Baroque performance against Chicano performance art.
Long Beach Opera, 1999
- Concept
- Christopher Fülling & Guillermo Gómez-Peña
- Director
- David Schweizer
- Music director
- Andreas Mitisek
- Choreography
- Sarah Shelton-Mann
Project portfolio · Site-specific spectacle
Mura
Petrusplatz, Duisburg, 2006
- Music
- Codex Calixtinus, Mark Lingk, Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Director
- Ursula Maria Berzborn
- Music directors
- Mark Lingk & Christopher Fülling
Contrapunkt Festival, Schloss Bröllin
- Music
- Codex Calixtinus, Martin Ertl, Slavic Medieval
- Director
- Ursula Maria Berzborn
Project portfolio · Grotest Maru, Berlin
Site-specific works
With the Berlin physical-theatre company Grotest Maru and director Ursula Maria Berzborn: large works made for a single site, engaging its geography, history, and local stories so audiences experience familiar landmarks in new ways.
Zeitreise des Barbarossa. Kyffhäuser Monument, Thuringia, 2005
- Music
- Beethoven, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Walther von der Vogelweide
- Music directors
- Martin Ertl & Christopher Fülling
Ubbo's Droom. Oerol Festival, Terschelling
- Music directors
- Christopher Fülling & Tarquinia Hill
Project portfolio · Italian town spectacles
Spettacoli itineranti
Processional spectacles for Italian towns, moving audiences through scenes created by professionals and local groups so they experience the old town and its history anew.
Project portfolio · Staged art song
Doktor Prospero
A solo staged work of art song by Quilter, Haydn, and Parry, arranged by Christopher Fülling, with electronics by Hunter Ochs. It runs 18 to 20 minutes and is available for engagements.
Theosophical Lodge, Los Angeles, 2012
- Director
- Christopher Fülling
- Music director
- Hunter Ochs
Project portfolio · Early Baroque pastoral
Ninfamania!
A pastoral entertainment compiled from Landi, Monteverdi, and d'India.
Theatre Artaud, San Francisco, 2005
- Director & music director
- Christopher Fülling
Project portfolio · In development
Circo Rossini
Petite Cirque Solennelle: Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle staged as circus.
Project portfolio · Balinese music theatre
Situbanda
Music theatre with Balinese traditional music and new music by Eric Oberthaler.
Bali Arts Festival, Denpasar & Solo, Java, 2005
- Director
- Christopher Fülling
- Music director
- Eric Oberthaler
Project portfolio · Rock opera
Burning Opera
Burning Opera: How to Survive the Apocalypse, a rock opera inspired by Burning Man. Music by Mark Nichols, lyrics by Erik Davis.
Teatro ZinZanni, San Francisco, 2011
- Director
- Christopher Fülling
- Music director
- Mark Nichols
Project portfolio · Desert opera
Operas at Burning Man
Large-scale operas on the playa with scenic designer Pepe Ozan, 1998–2002: The Temple of Rudra, Le Mystère de Papa Loko, Thartaurs of Atlan, Ark of the Nereids.
Project portfolio · Invented liturgy
Liturgy of Atlantis
An invented liturgy in the Atlantian language, created with Marije Nie. Performed in Amsterdam (De Waag, Thomas van Aquinokerk) and Berlin (Wasserspeicher), 2003–04.
Project portfolio
Early Music & liturgical reconstruction
Opera & site-specific
Rock opera & Burning Man
Areas of expertise
Roles
The old site's "Roles" menu item pointed to the home page. This page fixes that.