A master class by Artist Recital Series guest Nicholas Phan, tenor.
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Appearing regularly in the world’s premiere concert halls, music festivals and opera houses, American tenor Nicholas Phan continues to distinguish himself as one of the most compelling tenors performing today.
In the 2015-2016 season, Phan performs the role of Inverno in the American premiere of Alessandro Scarlatti’s La gloria di primavera as part of a tour with Philharmonia Baroque and makes his role debut as Tamino in Mozart’s Magic Flute in a set of semi-staged performances with Boston Baroque. In what are becoming signature roles for him, he will perform both the tenor arias and Evangelist on a tour of Bach’s St. John Passion with Apollo’s Fire and the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with John Nelson and the Strasbourg Philharmonic. As artistic director of Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, he will both curate and perform in the organization’s fourth annual Collaborative Works Festival, a vocal chamber music festival held in venues throughout Chicago. Other highlights this season include solo recitals at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Green Music Center in Sonoma; returns to the Dallas and Kansas City Symphonies; a return to Da Camera of Houston and his debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Phan has appeared with many of the leading orchestras in the North America and Europe, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Les Violons du Roy, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, and the Lucerne Symphony. He has also toured extensively throughout the major concert halls of Europe with Il Complesso Barocco, and appeared with the Oregon Bach, Ravinia, Marlboro, Edinburgh, Rheingau, Saint-Denis, and Tanglewood festivals, as well as the BBC Proms. Among the conductors he has worked with are Harry Bicket, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Alan Curtis, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jane Glover, Manfred Honeck, Bernard Labadie, Louis Langrée, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, John Nelson, Helmuth Rilling, David Robertson, Masaaki Suzuki, Michael Tilson Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst.
An avid proponent of vocal chamber music, he has collaborated with many chamber musicians, including pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Jeremy Denk, and Alessio Bax; violinist James Ehnes; guitarist Eliot Fisk; and horn players Jennifer Montone and Gail Williams. In recital, he has been presented by Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the University of Chicago. He is also a founder and the artistic director of Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, an organization devoted to promoting the art song and vocal chamber music repertoire.
Also considered one of the rising young stars of the opera world, Mr. Phan recently appeared as the title role in Candide at the Tanglewood Music Festival, with the Portland Opera as Fenton in Falstaff, the Atlanta Opera as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and the Seattle Opera as Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Other opera performances have included his debuts at the Glyndebourne Opera and the Maggio Musicale in Florence, as well as appearances with Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. His growing repertoire includes the title roles in Acis and Galatea and Candide, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Fenton in Falstaff, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Lurcanio in Ariodante.
Phan’s most recent solo album, A Painted Tale was released on Avie Records in February of 2015. His previous solo album, Still Falls the Rain (Avie), was named one of the best classical recordings of 2012 by the New York Times. His growing discography also includes the Grammy-nominated recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO Resound), his debut solo album, Winter Words (Avie), the opera L’Olimpiade with the Venice Baroque Orchestra (Naïve), and the world premiere recording of Elliott Carter’s orchestral song cycle, A Sunbeam’s Architecture (NMC).
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Phan is the 2012 recipient of the Paul C. Boylan Distinguished Alumni Award. He also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival and School, and is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He was the recipient of a 2006 Sullivan Foundation Award and 2004 Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation.
All publicity photos by FaceCollective.
