Patrick Wilhelm's sound has been praised as "ardent" and "burnished" (Broad Street Review) and having a "distinctive timbre" (Philadelphia Magazine) and "gorgeously plush color" (Parterre Box). He is a 25 year old baritone from Philadelphia in his second year of his master's degree at the Curtis Institute of Music. He is under the tutelage of Ashley Putnam and holds the Leila A. Wike fellowship. This season, Patrick appears in a film adaptation of Blitzstein's Triple-Sec as Hopkins, under the direction of Alek Shrader and Joey Mechavich. He also will be heard as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, directed by Eve Summer and under the baton of George Manahan. In the spring, Patrick sings Mozart's Requiem Mass with the Villanova Symphonic Choir and Orchestra; The Millennium Requiem by Larence H. Smith in Duxbury; and Johannes Brahms' Liebeslieder-Walzer at the Curtis Institute of Music. This summer Patrick joins Wolftrap Opera as Marchese d’Obigny in La traviata.
The 2020/21 season was nearly entirely cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Patrick was able to do a small house concert tour of Schubert's Die Winterreise with his dear friend and collaborator Mikael Eliasen, culminating in a performance for the Aspen Socrates Institute.
In the 2019/20 season, Patrick was featured in a Curtis Symphony Orchestra concert of Mozart opera ensembles under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Later in the season, Patrick sang with the Curtis 20/21 new music ensemble, performing works by Julius Eastman and David Del Tredici. He was also heard as Sid in Albert Herring with the Curtis Opera Theatre. In the summer of 2019, Patrick sang with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival as Demetrius in their production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He also appeared in concert with Mikael Eliasen, singing the Brahms Vier Ernste Gesänge.
In the 2018/2019 season, Patrick was heard as Aeneas and Sam in a double bill of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, performed with the Curtis Opera Theatre, and Paul in Rene Orth's Empty the House, a co-production between Opera Philadelphia and Curtis. He also joined Mikael Eliasen and Miloš Repicky on a US tour with Curtis on Tour.
Previous opera credits include the title role in Impressions of Pelléas, Junius in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Bill in Bernstein's A Quiet Place, Zaretsky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Mr. Gobineau in Menotti's The Medium, all with the Curtis Opera Theatre.
In previous summers, Patrick sang in masterclasses with esteemed collaborative pianist Dalton Baldwin, at the Mozarteum Sommerakademie in Salzburg and L'Académie Internationale d'Été de Nice. A passionate recitalist, Patrick's recent concert performances include Poulenc's Le bal masqué, Brahms' Acht Lieder op. 57, Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, and Strauss' Vier Lieder op. 27. Patrick is a graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College program and currently resides in Philadelphia.
