Bernstein on Broadway with Ernest Liotti, PhD

Performer, educator, and lecturer Ernest Liotti pursues an active career addressing a wide range of topics including classical music, opera, great musicians of the past, film and industrial design. A member of the Conservatory faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University Liotti teaches a variety of classes in both the Voice and Piano departments. He is also a long-standing lecturer for the Roadscholar Program at Peabody and has lectured extensively throughout the metropolitan Baltimore/Washington area. In demand as a speaker, Liotti has traveled across the United States and Europe addressing such organizations as Brandies University, Friends of Tanglewood, and Spoleto USA on subjects such as Bernstein’s music for the theatre, the operas of Giancarlo Menotti, and the career of Arturo Toscanini.

For 12 years he has been a regular lecturer for the Alumni Association of the Johns Hopkins University. In the summer of 2013 he was featured on a lecture cruise of the Baltic Sea whose principal speakers were Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Walesa. As a performer Liotti is the founding Director of the DaCamera Singers, a sixteen voiced chamber chorus that presented not only the standard repertoire but also promoted new works by regional composers. The chorus was the Vocal Ensemble in Residence at Loyola University Maryland from 1993-2009. Of his performances Octavio Rocca of the Washington Times wrote, “Mr. Liotti conducted with an obvious love of the music carefully etching every Chiaroscuro detail” The Washington Post wrote “the voices of the DaCamera Singers blended into a rich warm sound resulting in a handsomely crafted performance.” The Baltimore Sun noted, “Diction was clear. Entrances were precise and clean. Liotti’s unfussy conducting got the job done with simple eloquence.” In addition to musical pursuits Liotti teaches a number of classes on American film history. Specializing in early Hollywood, he has studied the transition from the silents to sound, the development of the studio system, and the careers of such luminaries as Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, Bette Davis and Lon Chaney.

An avid collector of American industrial design of the 1930’s, particularly the works of Gilbert Rohde (Herman Miller’s premiere designer of the time). Liotti’s collection was mentioned in the New York Times in 2007 and in Phyllis Ross’ 2009 book “Gilbert Rohde: Modern Design for Modern Living” (Yale Press). His home was featured in an 8-page 14-photo article in the Sept./Oct 2010 issue of “The Magazine Antiques”. Known for his dynamic and approachable style, Liotti remains a popular and sought-after speaker.