Photo by Clubsoda Productions
Nicholas Phan, tenor
American tenor Nicholas Phan is increasingly recognized as an artist of distinction. With a diverse repertoire that spans nearly 500 years of music, he performs regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies. An avid recitalist and a passionate advocate for art song and vocal chamber music, in 2010 Mr. Phan co-founded Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC), an organization devoted to promoting this underserved repertoire.
A celebrated recording artist, Mr. Phan’s most recent album, Stranger: Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, was released to critical acclaim in the summer of 2022 and was nominated for the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance. His previous albums, Clairières and Gods & Monsters, were nominated for the same award in 2020 and 2017, respectively, and made him the first singer of Asian descent to be nominated in the history of the category, which has been awarded by the Recording Academy since 1959.
Nicholas Phan is sought after as a curator and programmer. In addition to his work as artistic director of CAIC, he has created programs for broadcast on WFMT and WQXR, and served as guest curator for projects with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Merola Opera, and San Francisco Performances, where he served as the vocal artist-in-residence from 2014 to 2018. Mr. Phan’s programs often examine themes of identity, highlight unfairly underrepresented voices from history, and strive to underline the relevance of music from all periods to the currents of the present day.