Desiderium

Debut Album with Avie Records and Myra Huang

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The star of tenor John Matthew Myers is rapidly in the ascendent. His debut album, Desiderium, coincides with his Metropolitan Opera debut in Brett Dean’s Hamlet. Desiderium – “an ardent desire or longing, a feeling of loss or grief for something lost” – beautifully showcases Myers’ mellifluous voice. His thoughtful programme of works by American and American émigré composers opens with Samuel Barber’s yearning Knoxville: Summer of 1915 – rarely heard sung by a tenor – and transitions to Charles Griffes’ similarly searching settings of 3 Poems of Fiona Macleod, and Andre Previn’s 4 Songs for Tenor and Piano. What follows is A Letter from Sullivan Ballou, set to the words of a poignant letter by an American Civil War officer, by John Kander (of Kander and Ebb musical theatre fame). Rounding out the recital are 4 Walt Whitman Songs by German-born composer Kurt Weill, including the classic O Captain! My Captain!

“Myers' expansive tenor expressed pathos and hope.”

— Star-Telegram

John Matthew Myers has garnered acclaim for his “lovely, warm tenor of considerable promise” (Opera News), “insightful and beautifully nuanced performances” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram), and “remarkable emotional depth and range” (Opera Magazine) in recent collaborations with companies such as the New York Philharmonic, Verbier Festival, Metropolitan Opera, Opera National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala, and Teatro la Fenice. His critically acclaimed solo debut album, a thoughtful program of works by American and American émigré composers titled Desiderium with pianist Myra Huang, was released on AVIE Records in 2022. 

In the 2024-2025 season, Myers performs Handel’s Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck and with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He returns to the Grant Park Music Festival to sing Mahler’s 8th Symphony and to the Oregon Symphony as tenor soloist in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. In concert, he sings the roles of Iopas in Les Troyens at the Seattle Opera with Ludovic Morlot and Cavaradossi in Tosca with the Richmond Symphony under Valentina Peleggi. He debuts with the Opera Carlo Felice Genova as Midas in Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae under Fabio Luisi and with Opernhaus Zürich as Bacchus in Andreas Homoki’s new production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos led by Markus Poschner.

Myers made his surprise Los Angeles Philharmonic debut in 2017 as Mao in John Adams’s Nixon in China conducted by the composer. In 2023, he reprised the role with the Opera National de Paris under Gustavo Dudamel, “handling Mao’s tessitura with seeming ease and limning a convincing portrayal both imposing and humorous” (Classical Voice North America). Fort Worth Symphony

Recently, Myers has covered roles for the Metropolitan Opera in productions of Britten’s Peter Grimes, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, Tchaikovsky’s Queens of Spades and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. The 2021-2022 season included a role in the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere of Brett Dean's Hamlet, and last season, he also covered Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre with the Fort Worth Symphony.

Highlights of Myers’ extensive opera repertoire include Pollione in Norma (LA Opera), Cavaradossi in Tosca (Arizona Opera), Don Jose in Carmen (Music Academy of the West), Cassio in Otello (Portland Summer Fest), Flavio in Bellini’s Norma (Teatro Regio di Parma), Trin in La Fanciulla del West (Santa Fe Opera), Valerio in Mercadante's Virginia (Wexford Festival Opera), Der Kaiser in Die Frau Ohne Schatten (San Francisco Opera), Aufide in Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon (Collegiate Chorale/Carnegie Hall), Junior/Charlie in Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain (Santa Fe Opera), and Der Tenor/Bacchus in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (Teatro La Fenice).  As a Resident Artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts, Myers sang Duca di Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Prince Sinodal in Rubinstein’s The Demon, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, and the Prince in Dvorak’s Rusalka. He has collaborated with Long Beach Opera to perform Michael Gordon’s Van Gogh, Gabriela Ortiz’s Camelia la Tejana: Unicamente La Verdad, Stewart Copeland’s Tell-Tale Heart, and a co-production of Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin with Chicago Opera Theater. He made his New York Philharmonic debut in the world premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. He also sang in John Cage’s Europeras 1 & 2 in with the LA Phil in collaboration with The Industry and Yuval Sharon.

Myers has been seen as a soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Grand Rapids Symphony, Handel’s Messiah with the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Canterbury Choral Society, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and with Cameristi della Scala at Teatro alla Scala, Britten’s War Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall and in the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music with the Wexford Festival Orchestra, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Fairfield Chorale, and Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes with Performance Santa Fe. He recently performed Dvořák’s Stabat Mater at the Grant Park Music Festival, about which the Chicago Tribune wrote, “He astonished from his thrilling entrance…and kept listeners at the edge of their seats whenever he appeared, his voice a thing of poignance and power.”

Originally from southern California, Myers received his graduate and undergraduate degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, was a Gerdine Young Artist with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Apprentice Artist with Santa Fe Opera, an alumnus of the Verbier Festival Academy, and a fellow with Music Academy of the West. He won Third Prize and the Richard Tauber Prize for the best interpretation of Schubert Lieder at the 2022 Wigmore Hall Bollinger International Song Competition.

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