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Tenor James Charles Taylor. American lyrico spinto tenor James Charles Taylor, has a long list of accolades, including “a rich, focused baritone”, “sings magnificently”, “great beauty as well as dramatic power”, “richly musical”, and “superb”. At home in opera as well as the concert and recital stages, he has appeared with numerous opera houses and symphony orchestras including the New York City Opera National Company, San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theatre, Central City Opera, Hawaii Opera Theatre, and Connecticut Grand Opera, the Arkansas Symphony, the Alabama Symphony, the Chattanooga Symphony, the Riverside Symphonium, and the National Chorale. Mr. Taylor has also given recitals in the US, Europe, and Asia, including a recital tour of the Netherlands and Malaysia.
Mr. Taylor appeared as a baritone in a variety of operatic roles including Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Marcello in La Boheme, Germont in La Traviata, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Danilo in The Merry Widow, Escamillo in Carmen, Figaro and the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, Dandini in La Cenerentola, Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette, and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. He made his Alice Tully Hall debut as Claudio in Berlioz’ Beatrice et Benedict in the New York premiere of the work, and was chosen as a member of the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, where he performed Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus for the company at Villa Montalvo and on tour with Western Opera Theatre.
As a soloist, Mr. Taylor has performed such works as Carmina Burana, Ein Deutsches Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the Requiems of Faure and Durufle, Bach’s Johannes Passion, Magnificat, and Weihnachts Oratorium, Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Ravel’s Don Quichotte et Dulcinee, Dona Nobis Pacem and The Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan-Williams. He was a featured soloist with the National Chorale for its performances of Händel’s Messiah in Avery Fisher Hall. A specialist in the Ballads of Carl Loewe, he has sung recitals at Virginia Tech, Emory University, the University of Mississippi, Auburn University, Oklahoma State, University of Alabama, Charlottesville, VA, and Greenwich, CT, Gronnigen, Breda, Utrecht, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Mr. Taylor has won and or placed in several vocal competitions: winner of the Metropolitan Opera District Auditions for Connecticut and Alabama, Fourth Place in the Mid South Regional Metropolitan Opera Auditions, winner of the Connecticut Opera Theatre Amici Competition, as well as being a semi finalist in the International Belvedere/Hans Gabor Competition, the Dutch International Vocal Competition, and the International Johannes Brahms competition. Mr. Taylor was invited to participate in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Recent performances include a four city recital tour of Malaysia, recitals in Charleston, SC, Richmond, VA, and Washington DC of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, a recital of American Songs at the Helen Keller Festival in Tuscambia, Al, a debut with Opera Carolina as Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, solos in Brahms’ Ein Dueutsches Requiem with the Choral Society of Durham, NC, Germont in La Traviata with Asheville Lyric Opera, Germont in La Traviata with the Oratorio Society of Charlottesville- Albemarle, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music with the Ash Lawn-Highland Opera Festival, Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Anchorage Opera, and Marcello in La Boheme in concert with the Huxford Symphony, a production broadcast as a documentary on Alabama Public Television.
Mr. Taylor holds degrees from Birmingham Southern College and Yale University.
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