“This week our Classical Californian will be acclaimed tenor Nicholas Phan, who’s also an educator and musical curator. He’s the Artistic Director and co-founder of Collaborative Art Institutes of Chicago (CAIC), and for the past decade or so has made San Francisco his home…”
Over the coming season, Grammy-nominated tenor Nicholas Phan – “one of the world’s most remarkable singers” (Boston Globe) – balances opera, concert and recital performances with curatorial and educational activities. On the curatorial front, he launches his season…
“…Recital singing is essential for singers, he added. “It’s the place where they can be most vulnerable and at the same time, have the most autonomy. There’s no conductor in front of them; they’re dealing with poetry on their own terms…”
– The Mercury News
“The 2023-24 Kaufman Music Center Artists-in-Residence are the trailblazing self-conducted orchestra A Far Cry, the composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón and the Grammy-nominated tenor and educator Nicholas Phan…”
“The four singers…were superb as individuals and as an ensemble...Tenor Nicholas Phan sang and acted brilliantly as the impulsive Yonas, who slowly matures as he comprehends the generosity and hope behind his mother’s behavior.”
– San Francisco Classical Voice
“This week our Classical Californian will be acclaimed tenor Nicholas Phan, who’s also an educator and musical curator. He’s the Artistic Director and co-founder of Collaborative Art Institutes of Chicago (CAIC), and for the past decade or so has made San Francisco his home…”
Nicholas Phan is nominated for Best Classical Solo Voice Album. This is his 3rd nomination. The work is a composition called "Stranger" and it was written by modern composer Nico Muhly.
CBS News Bay Area interviewed Nicholas at the renowned Skywalker Sound in Marin County…
…The three of us connected over Zoom last month to discuss the genesis and reception of Stranger, the questions around identity and immigration which lie at the heart of the piece…
“The four singers…were superb as individuals and as an ensemble...Tenor Nicholas Phan sang and acted brilliantly as the impulsive Yonas, who slowly matures as he comprehends the generosity and hope behind his mother’s behavior.”
– San Francisco Classical Voice
“…Stranger, Muhly’s song cycle for tenor (Nicholas Phan) was lucid and concise in an earlier version for string quartet; now, it glints with greatness…Tenor Phan, always a commanding presence, brought especial tenderness to these songs…”
“the soloists were outstanding. Tenor Nicholas Phan was an Evangelist brimful of such empathy as to be quite heartbreaking…” – The Financial Times
“…The tenor Nicholas Phan was a lyrical, actorly guide through the story as the Evangelist…” – The New York Times
“Orchestra, chorus, soloists, and Pearlman combined to deliver the most compelling performance I’ve seen from Boston Baroque in years. That slate of soloists featured several names well known to anyone who’s been a regular at Boston Baroque, including..the keen and thoughtful tenor Nicholas Phan...” – Boston Globe
“‘The Song of Chicago’ proved, once again, that CAIC is no pedestrian programmer. As tenor and Artistic Director Nicholas Phan made clear during his interstitial comments, this ‘Song of Chicago’ had not just a chorus but a well-researched thesis, arguing that Chicago was uniquely nurturing to composers in the 20th century. Its conservatories educated, if not always warmly welcomed, more Black musicians than peer institutions, and during the same period, the city’s pro-labor leftist movements gave refuge to artists who might have been forced to the fringes elsewhere — like Sandburg and his alliances with composers Ruth Crawford Seeger and Ernst Bacon.”
First Preview Track from 'A Change Is Gonna Come' Now Streaming!
Three-time Grammy-nominated tenor Nicholas Phan, whom the Boston Globe declared “one of the world’s most remarkable singers,” joins Palaver Strings, a musician-led string ensemble based in Portland, Maine, and jazz vocalist Farayi Malek for the new album A Change Is Gonna Come on the Azica label, exploring America’s rich legacy of protest songs (May 24)….