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John Holiday

John Thomas Holiday Jr. (born March 31, 1985) is an American operatic countertenor. His repertoire focuses on the Baroque and contemporary composers, including staged opera and opera in concert, works for voice and orchestra, and experimental mixed-media. He has participated in several world premieres. He has performed with several opera companies in the United States, toured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and sung in Shanghai and several European cities. He also sings gospel, pop, and jazz; he was a contestant on season 19 of NBC's The Voice, a vocal competition television series.

John Holiday
Born
John Thomas Holiday, Jr.

(1985-03-31) 31 March 1985 (age 39)
Houston, Texas
EducationJuilliard School (ADOS
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (MM)
Southern Methodist University (BM)
Occupations
  • Operatic countertenor
  • crossover artist
  • singer
  • Professor of music
Spouses
  • Paul Gater
    ​
    ​
    (m. 2013, divorced)​
  • DeMario Adams
    ​
    (m. 2022)​
WebsiteOfficial website

Early life

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Holiday was born in 1985 in the city of Rosenberg, Greater Houston, in Fort Bend County, Texas, to John Holiday, Sr, a welder and Waverly A. Holiday a homemaker who sang and played clarinet. His maternal grandmother, Sandra Mathis Franklin, was the pianist and music director at Missionary Baptist Church. He taught himself to play piano by imitating her, and later the organ. While only 6 or 7 years old he sang solos in church and at Travis Elementary School. He won a spot in the Fort Bend Boys Choir, which led to appearances as a treble soloist in the Houston Symphony's performances of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust with Denyce Graves in the role of Marguérite. He later said: "I’d never seen anyone who looked like me doing what she did. I’d never thought of being an opera singer. To tell the truth, I didn’t know that world even existed. I decided that was what I wanted to do."[1]

Holiday graduated from Lamar Consolidated High School in Rosenberg, Texas. For two of his high school years he was the first chair tenor in the All-State Mixed Choir sponsored by the Texas Music Educators Association.[2] The University Interscholastic League designated him one of the Most Outstanding Performers in Texas.[3]

Education and vocal training

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He studied at Southern Methodist University (SMU) from 2003 to 2007, earning a bachelor of music degree in vocal performance.[4] While a student at SMU, he won first place at the TEXOMA region of the National Association of Teachers of Singing several times. Though SMU presented few performance opportunities for a countertenor, in 2005 he did sing the role of Gherardino in the school's production of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. He won the Concerto Competition of SMU's Meadows School of the Arts in 2007.

He spent the academic year 2007–2008 studying voice at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. He then returned to Rosenberg and taught Choral Music and Voice at Lamar Junior High School and Lamar Consolidated High School from August 2008 to December 2009. He returned to vocal studies, now at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he earned a master's degree in vocal performance in 2012. There he performed the role of Tolomeo in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto under conductor Mark Gibson. In May 2011, he took first place in the Dallas Opera Guild Competition.[5] He spent the summer of that year with the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice program for singers.[6]

He next enrolled at Juilliard, studied with Marlena Malas and Stephen Wadsworth, and obtained his Artist Diploma in Opera Studies in 2014.

He later said his models in the countertenor repertoire were Andreas Scholl and Derek Lee Ragin.[7]

Career in opera

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Holiday made his Carnegie Hall debut in October 2012, performing Bernstein's Chichester Psalms with the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Spano.[8] He made his debut at Portland Opera in the role of 1st Oracle and 1st Cardinal in Kevin Newbury's 2012 production of Galileo Galilei by Philip Glass under the baton of maestra Anne Manson.[9] He reprised those roles in his 2013 debut at the Cincinnati Opera.[10]

In 2013 he took on the title role in the James Darrah production of Radamisto at the Juilliard School.[11] At Wolf Trap Opera that year he performed the title role in Giulio Cesare in Egitto.[12] In 2014, he also made his Los Angeles Opera debut as the Sorceress in the Barrie Kosky production of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.[13]

In 2015, he originated the role of Male Soloist No. 1 in the world premiere of Huang Ruo's Paradise Interrupted at the Spoleto Festival USA,[14] a role he repeated in New York at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2016[15] and in Shanghai for the Art Macau Festival.[16]

At the Glimmerglass Festival in the summer of 2015, he sang the role of Giulio Cesare in Tazewell Thompson's production of Antonio Vivaldi's Catone in Utica.[17] He returned to sing the title role in Handel's Xerxes in the summer of 2017.[18] In November 2015, he joined Parnassus Arts in concert performances of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Adriano in Siria in Versailles and Krakow.[14]

In January 2017, he won the Marian Anderson Vocal Award.[19] In September 2017, he sang in the Opera Philadelphia world premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain's chamber opera We Shall Not Be Moved.[20] He repeated that performance at the Dutch National Opera in March 2018, his European debut.[21] He then sang Bernstein's Chichester Psalms on tour with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in New York, London, and Paris.[6]

In December 2019 he performed the alto part in Handel's Messiah with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra.[22]

In February 2020 he sang in the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin's Eurydice at the Los Angeles Opera.[23] He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in that opera in December 2021.[24][25]

Though the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of many of his scheduled performances, his recital at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art was presented as a virtual concert. Holiday combined Italian baroque arias with works by Black composers in conjunction with the museum's exhibit of paintings by Jacob Lawrence called "The American Struggle".[26]

In November 2022 he sang the roles of Man Under the Arch and Hotel Clerk in the world stage premiere of Kevin Puts's The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera.[27]

Holiday has been an associate professor of music at the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University since 2017.[28] He is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).[28] and The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences

Other music

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Holiday has performed jazz and gospel music throughout his career. In 2006, he opened for Grammy award winner Jason Mraz at the McFarlon Auditorium in Dallas.[29] He released a jazz album entitled "The Holiday Guide" that year as well.

In 2018, he sang the national anthem at a basketball game between the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors at the Toyota Center.

In October 2020, he auditioned successfully for a contestant's spot on NBC's The Voice, where he was coached by John Legend.[30] He came in fifth place in the final.

He has released 3 pop singles, “Alive in Me”, “Waste Mine”, and “Love Finds a Way”, the latter also receiving a remix by Houston-based DJ Riddler. All songs were produced by Rob Grimaldi, best known for co-writing and co-producing the BTS song “Butter”.

Personal life

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Holiday has identified as gay since he was a teenager.[31] On February 4, 2013, he married his husband, Paul Gater.[1] As of 2021, he is divorced from Gater. He got engaged to fellow The Voice contestant Rio Souma (real name DeMario Adams) in the summer of 2021, and married on July 30, 2022. The couple currently live in Appleton, Wisconsin. He was represented by Columbia Artists Management[32] until 2018. He has been represented since that time by Fletcher Artist Management.[33] March 31 has been named "John Holiday Day" in Fort Bend County, Texas.[34]

He is the second cousin of the former Vice President of Major League Baseball Jimmie Lee Solomon.

Major performances

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Opera

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Orchestra

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Tours in America, France and the U.K. with ‘'Gustavo Dudamel and Los Angeles Philharmonic (Chichester Psalms)

Awards

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Award Competition Year
Honoree Yerba Buena Center For The Arts YBCA 100 2018
Winner Marian Anderson Vocal Award 2017
Third Place Operalia 2014
Richard F. Gold Career Grant Shoshanna Foundation 2014
Sarah Tucker Career Grant The Richard Tucker Foundation Competition 2014
First Place The Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition 2013
Third Place Licia Albanese International Vocal Competition 2013
Third Place Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition 2013
Encouragement Award The George London Foundation Competition 2012
First Place The Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition 2011
Top Award Sullivan Foundation Auditions 2011
Anna Case MacKay Award The Santa Fe Opera 2011
Fifth Place Palm Beach Opera Competition 2011

Leadership roles

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References

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  1. ^ a b Farber, Jim (October 22, 2014). "A Countertenor Rising star". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  2. ^ "TMEA". Archived from the original on November 14, 2015.
  3. ^ "University Interscholastic League". UIL ARCHIVES.
  4. ^ "Alumnus John Holiday ('07) Makes Carnegie Hall Debut". Southern Methodist University. November 9, 2012. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  5. ^ "The 23rd Annual "Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition" Awards $20,500 in Prize Monies!". May 14, 2011. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  6. ^ a b "John Holiday". Los Angeles Philharmonic. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  7. ^ "John Holiday, the man singing Bernstein with the highest of high voices in Disney Hall". Los Angeles Times. April 18, 2018.
  8. ^ "Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus". New York Times. October 29, 2012. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  9. ^ Mandel, Mark (July 2012). "Review: Galileo Galilei". Opera News. 77 (1). Retrieved October 27, 2020. Dulcet countertenor John Holiday
  10. ^ de Acha, Rafael (August 2, 2013). "Galileo from Philip Glass: Visually Arresting and Dramatically Cohesive". Aeqai. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  11. ^ Oestreich, James R. (November 21, 2013). "Rethinking Further War". New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  12. ^ Lynn, Karyl Charna (June 30, 2014). "Opera Now News Story". Opera Now. Archived from the original on January 21, 2015. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  13. ^ Williams, Simon (January 2015). "Dido and Aeneas & Bluebeard's Castle". Opera News. 79 (7). Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  14. ^ a b Kirst, Seamus (May 31, 2015). "Countertenor John Holiday steals the festival". Charleston Post & Courier. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  15. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (July 14, 2016). "Review: A Powerful Opera of Eastern and Western Allure". New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  16. ^ "Jennifer Wen Ma". Little Meat Productions. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  17. ^ Waleson, Heidi (August 3, 2015). "Glimmerglass Festival Review: Celebrating 40 Years". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  18. ^ Freedman, Geraldine (July 18, 2017). "High marks for 'Calais,' 'Xerxes' at Glimmerglass". Daily Gazette (Albany). Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  19. ^ Midgette, Anne (January 12, 2017). "African American countertenor John Holiday wins prestigious Anderson opera award". Washington Post. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  20. ^ Shengold, David (September 2017). "We Shall Not Be Moved". Opera News. 82 (3).
  21. ^ "We Shall Not Be Moved". Dutch National Opera. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  22. ^ "Händels "Messias"". Luzerner Sinfonieorchester (in German). Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  23. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (February 3, 2020). "Review: 'Eurydice,' a New Opera, Looks Back All Too Tamely". New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  24. ^ Met Opera Archives: Performance of Eurydice, 11 December 2021, CID:357527.
  25. ^ "Eurydice". Metropolitan Opera. Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  26. ^ "Hold On! Freedom Is Coming!". MetLiveArts. October 28, 2020. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  27. ^ Met Opera Archives: Performance of The Hours, 22 November 2022, CID:357754.
  28. ^ a b "John Holiday, Assistant Professor of Music". Lawrence University. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  29. ^ Saadi, Sommer. "Jason Mraz rocks McFarlin at the first-ever CODERED concert". SMU Daily Campus. Retrieved May 1, 2006.
  30. ^ Brandle, Lars (October 20, 2020). "Countertenor John Holiday Blows Away Judges With 'Incredible' Range on 'The Voice': Watch". Billboard. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  31. ^ Reynolds, Daniel (February 17, 2020). "In Eurydice, a Black Gay Man's Voice Moves the Gods and Opera World". The Advocate. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  32. ^ "Columbia Artists Management Inc. — John Holiday". Columbia Artists Management. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  33. ^ "John Holiday". Fletcher Artist Management. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  34. ^ "March 31 named John Holiday Day". January 19, 2021.
  35. ^ "Honorary Board".
  36. ^ "Barbara Hill Moore & Bruce R. Foote Foundation". Barbara Hill Moore & Bruce R. Foote Foundation. Retrieved May 20, 2024.
  37. ^ "Meadows 2050 Council - Meadows School of the Arts, SMU".
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