Kenneth Overton | Featured Artist
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 Duruflé's Requiem and Undine Smith Moore’s Scenes from the Life of a Martyr.
Overton is quickly becoming a champion of new works, returning to San Francisco Opera in “the most eagerly anticipated new opera of the season”; the World Premiere of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West. He also created the role of Ralph Abernathy in the World Premiere of the Rhythm & Blues opera I Dream by Douglas Tappin for Opera Grand Rapids, Toledo Opera, and Opera Carolina and performed the role of Stephen Kumalo in Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars for Union Avenue Opera.
Pride and tradition portray the motif of Kenneth’s debut solo album Been In De Storm So Long: Songs My Fathers Taught Me, his homage to the spiritual tradition that has been formative in his artistic life. Pianist Kevin Miller and Kenneth’s collaboration embody the historic Spirituals from our past and contemporary art songs by African American Composers, giving them a new life of their own. He hails from Philadelphia.
Learn more about Kenneth and his work at the links below:
Kenneth appears on these Resonance programs: