Kenneth Tarver

Kenneth Tarver is an American operatic tenor, born in Detroit. He is a graduate of Yale University, Oberlin College, and the Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Program. Known for his interpretations of Mozart, Rossini, Berlioz, and the virtuosic Bel Canto repertoire, he is equally at home with works by Igor Stravinsky and Rodion Shchedrin.

Tarver has appeared at some of the world’s leading opera houses, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera New York, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, and Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. He has also performed at major festivals such as the Edinburgh Festival and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

He has sung with prominent orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and the Berlin Philharmonic. Tarver has worked with a distinguished roster of conductors, among them Claudio Abbado, Ivor Bolton, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Teodor Currentzis, Sir Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, Kent Nagano, and Zubin Mehta.

His extensive discography includes recordings for Opera Rara (La donna del lago, Aureliano in Palmira) and LSO Live (Les Troyens, Béatrice et Bénédict, Roméo et Juliette). For Sony Classical, he has recorded Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni with Teodor Currentzis and MusicAeterna. With Deutsche Grammophon, he collaborated with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra on Les nuits d'été and Roméo et Juliette. His recordings with Kent Nagano and the London Symphony Orchestra include Leonard Bernstein’s A White House Cantata. He also appears on the Grammy Award-winning recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens (Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album) conducted by Sir Colin Davis on LSO Live.