MEET THE SOLOIST: John Tessier, tenor

RIPHIL • December 3, 2021

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Tenor John Tessier performs Handel's Messiah
December 12, 2021 at 3PM

Background: On the international stages of opera, concert, and recital, Canadian John Tessier has garnered attention and praise for the beauty and honesty of his voice, for a refined style and creative versatility, and for his handsome, youthful presence in the lyric tenor repertoire. The Juno Award-winning artist has worked with many of the most notable conductors of our day including David Robertson, Leonard Slatkin, Plácido Domingo, John Nelson, Franz Welser-Möst, Emmanuelle Haïm, Charles Dutoit, Donald Runnicles, Robert Spano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Bernard Labadie.

Highlights:


  • John Tessier’s vibrant discography includes Mozart’s Requiem both with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy, John Corigliano’s A Dylan Thomas Trilogy with Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony, Stephen Paulus’ To Be Certain of the Dawn with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place with Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Henry VIII with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra and, Haydn’s The Creation with Jane Glover leading Music of the Baroque.
  • On the concert stage, the tenor has been heard in performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Iván Fischer and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust with the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst, Mozart’s Requiem with Hervé Niquet leading the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn’s Elijah both with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Charlotte Symphony, and Carmina Burana with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony. 
  • In the 2020-21 season, John Tessier was engaged for performances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, and for a presentation of Anna Bolena at Edmonton Opera.
    Performances of the 2019-2020 season included         Il Barbiere di Siviglia with New Zealand Opera and Handel’s Messiah with Chicago’s International Music Foundation. He was engaged for performances of Die Fledermaus at the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Japan in a production staged by Metropolitan Opera director David Kneuss and conducted by Artistic Director Seiji Ozawa as well as for symphonic performances with the Calgary Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Vancouver Bach Choir.

Critical Praise:

  • “Tessier has a lovely, limpid voice that carries extremely well. With its warm timbre, he seems to float to the highest notes, as in the famous aria Ah mes amis, in which he reeled off a whopping nine high Cs, completely free of strain.” Winnipeg Free Press
  • “John Tessier set the bar high with his flexible forward tenor…he handles Rossini’s runs with unostentatious ease, so the demanding coloratura sounds seamlessly part of a whole. More over he sings expressively and imbues honesty…” Boston Classical Review


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