Paul Berkolds is a singer and teacher of a diverse repertoire of classical, contemporary, theatrical, and folk music.
He has performed extensively in the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, England, the Baltic countries, Taiwan, and Australia, including with opera companies in Houston, Dayton, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, Detroit, Orlando, New York, and Washington DC as well as in Germany, France and Latvia. His operatic roles include Escamillo (Carmen), Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Don Basilio (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and Colline (La Boheme). His musical theater roles include El Gallo (The Fantasticks), MacHeath (Threepenny Opera), Don Quixote (Man of La Mancha), and—for three years on the third national tour of Phantom of the Opera—the Auctioneer, Don Attilio, Passarino, and Firman.
An avid performer of contemporary music, Berkolds is active in the southern California new music scene, where he has performed on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Concert Series, the MicroFest Series, Monday Evening Concerts, Jacaranda Concerts, and with The Industry in its acclaimed production Hopscotch. He regularly performs with the ensemble Partch and can be heard on its Grammy award-winning CD of Harry Partch’s Plectra and Percussion Dances, selected as the Best Classical Compendium of 2014. He has collaborated with several composers and premiered numerous works, including by Ben Johnston, Iannis Xenakis, Anne LeBaron, Marc Lowenstein, Talivaldis Kenins, David Diamond, William Brooks, Frank Denyer, Mark Bobak, and others.
Berkolds was a founding member of Vir2Ual Cage, an expansive collaborative project centered on performing and researching John Cage’s Song Books, an encyclopedic collection of musical and theatrical pieces considered a benchmark of experimental music. He has performed and co-produced numerous renditions of Song Books in the US, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Latvia, and has co-directed workshops on Cage’s work. Of particular note was his performance in Los Angeles with the renowned Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Mikhail Baryshnikov during the troupe’s farewell tour in 2010.
A first-generation American born of immigrants from Latvia, Berkolds maintains a deep connection to Latvian culture. He has traveled frequently to Latvia to perform, study, and teach, including several times at the biennial International Young Musicians’ Master Classes. In the Los Angeles area he founded the folk ensembles Lāčkāja and SKAN, both of which present the ancient music and lore of the Baltic region.
Berkolds studied at the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of Southern California, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in voice. Since 1999 he has taught at the California Institute of the Arts, where he co-directs the innovative VoiceArts program.