 
Martin Hennessy is a pianist and vocal coach in New York City. His
studies at Georgetown University and at the Juilliard School with Samuel
Sanders and Marshall Williamson have prepared him for rewarding
collaborations with many leading singers. A keen interest in language
and poetry, together with his exemplary accompaniments, continue to
make him a highly prized recital partner. He has toured extensively
through Europe, the United States and Asia with the Bel Canto Trio and
the Ambassadors of Opera and he has served on the faculties of the
Juilliard American Opera Center, Carlo Bergonzi’s Bel Canto Seminar
and Joan Dornemann’s Opera Training Institute in North Carolina. In
addition he has been musical director and pianist for numerous
productions and master classes mounted by the Metropolitan Opera
Guild’s Education Program as well as serving as frequent accompanist
for the Met's Young Artist’s Program. As a composer, Mr. Hennessy has received awards from ASCAP and
Meet the Composer, and his musical EDGAR, inspired by Edgar Allan
Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, was developed at Live Arts Theater in
Charlottesville, VA, where it received its first run in the spring of 1998.
Tomoko Shibata premiered his vocalise for soprano and cello, Silent
Night, at Oji Hall in Tokyo in 1997 while a compact disc
featuring seven of his songs paired with Ned Rorem’s cycle, Women’s Voices, was
released on Newport Classic in 1998 (Women’s Voices, NPD 85613).
This bears the fruit of a long-standing collaboration with Metropolitan
Opera soprano, Heidi Skok. He is also featured pianist on Newport’s The
Songs of Amy Beach and William Mayer. Hennessy also enjoys a close collaboration with flutist, Don Hulbert, who
premiered his Torch Song Sonata at the 1996 National Flute Association
Convention in New York and Le Virus S’Amuse for solo flute at Dancers
Responding to AIDS/The Remember Project ’99 at St. Marks in New
York. Laura Glenn, director of White Mountain Dance Festival,
choreographed his vocalise for soprano and cello especially for this
event. He is currently working on a commission from countertenor, John
Carden, to compose a setting of Edgar Lee Master’s Benjamin Fraser
for male alto, harp, flute, cello and percussion. Mr. Hennessy has been
openly HIV positive since 1992 when he began working with Positive
Music, an organization of classical musicians furthering visibility and
awareness of AIDS that premiered many of his first compositions. He
continues a creative-spiritual approach in living with HIV and organizes
intensive three day retreats with therapists from London’s Helios Centre
in which participants explore the question, “Who am I?” He is also
pursuing a degree in English at Columbia University’s School of General
Studies and he is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
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