Guest Artist: Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Royal Opera House Copenhagen, L’Opera de Montreal, Palacio Bellas Artes, New York City Opera, Welsh National Opera
Guest Vocal Clinician: N.A.T.S., University of Kentucky, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Kenneth Overton is lauded for blending his opulent baritone with magnetic, varied portrayals that seemingly “emanate from deep within body and soul.” Kenneth Overton’s symphonious baritone voice has sent him around the globe, making him one of the most sought-after opera singers of his generation. Kenneth is a 2020 GRAMMY AWARD WINNER for Best Choral Performance in the title role of Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by JoAnn Falletta.
This season, Overton will lead two productions for the Welsh National Opera’s new season. The new work Migrations, and in the world premiere of The Shoemaker. Overton will reprise his most celebrated role in Porgy and Bess as Porgy, co-produced by Opera Carolina and North Carolina Opera. Concert engagements will include Handel’s Messiah at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, a concert staging of Porgy and Bess with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, a solo recital for the African American Music Festival at Pennsylvania State University, a solo recital with the Howland Chamber Music Circle, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen for the Spartanburg Philharmonic, and a return to The Kennedy Center with The Washington Chorus as the soloist for Durufle’s Requiem and Undine Smith Moore’s Scenes from the Life of a Martyr.
Last season’s operatic engagements included Kenneth’s Metropolitan Opera debut in the fall of 2021 as Lawyer Frazier in Porgy and Bess.