Nicholas Phan

Described by the Boston Globe as “one of the world’s most remarkable singers,” American tenor Nicholas Phan is increasingly recognized as an artist of distinction. An artist with an incredibly diverse repertoire that spans nearly 500 years of music, he performs regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies. Phan is also an avid recitalist and a passionate advocate for art song and vocal chamber music; in 2010, Phan co-founded Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC), an organization devoted to promoting this underserved repertoire.

Phan begins the 2024-25 season curating and performing in CAIC’s 13th annual Collaborative Works Festival Song of the Bard, which examines William Shakespeare's influence on the world of song. Later in the season, he makes his debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal, and performs the world premieres of two new song cycles by Viet Cuong with Cleveland-based ensemble Les Délices and Houston’s River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. Other season highlights include a tour of Britten’s Les Illuminations with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra; recitals with San Francisco Performances, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach; as well as returns to the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Handel & Haydn Society, and the Pacific Symphony.

A celebrated recording artist, Phan’s most recent album, A Change is Gonna Come, was released to critical acclaim in May 2024. His album, Stranger: Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, was nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. His previous albums, Clairières and Gods and Monsters, were nominated for the same award in 2020 and 2017. He is 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. His other previous solo albums Illuminations, A Painted Tale, Still Fall the Rain and Winter Words made many “best of” lists, including those of the New York Times, New Yorker, Chicago Tribute, WQXR, and The Boston Globe.

Sought after as a curator and programmer, in addition to his work as artistic director of CAIC, Phan is the host and creator of BACH 52, a web series examining the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He has created programs for broadcast on WFMT and WQXR and has also served as guest curator for projects with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Merola Opera, and San Francisco Performances, where he served as the vocal artist-in-residence from 2014-2018. Praised by Chicago Classical Review as “the kind of thoughtful, intelligent programming that should be a model,” 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.