Tyler Nelson

Tyler Nelson is one of America’s most promising young tenors. Already enjoying success in a wide variety of concert repertoire, his recent engagements have included performance of the Britten Serenade with the Utah Valley Symphony, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Saginaw Bay Symphony, Mozart Requiem with Utah Chamber Artists, The Creation with Thomasville singers, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the California and Reno Symphonies. He has also appeared as a soloist on the stage of the Kennedy Center, and was selected by Marilyn Horne as a master class participant at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Nelson also has a wide range of operatic experience. During successive seasons with Ohio Light Opera, Arts blog CoolCleveland.com commented of his performance: “Tyler Nelson, as that erstwhile clergyman, could steal the show if he tried. As it was, he nearly brought down the house with I Aim to Please.” Opera News, reviewing a recording of Maytime, called his singing “mellifluous”.

A frequent performer at the Castleton Festival, under the baton of Maestro Lorin Maazel, Mr. Nelson has performed the roles of: Male Chorus in Rape of Lucretia, Gherardo and Rinuccio in Gianni Schiichi, the Mayor in Alber Herring, Maese Pedro in El retablo del Maese Pedro, Father in 7 Dedly Sins, La Rainette in L’enfant et les sortileges and Almaviva in Barbiere di Siviglia, which he performed at the Castleton Festival and with the National Center for the performing arts in Beijing, China.

His international debut was in Mazatlan, Mexico, performing the role of Shallow in Gordon Getty’s Plump Jack, under the direction of the composer. Robert Commanday of San Francisco Classical Voice said of Mr. Nelson’s performance: “Tyler Nelson, a young tenor living in Florida, did a captivating number on Justice Shallow. His diction was impeccable and his animation as the silly, ridiculous squire won for him alone laughs that were independent of the lines. His bright, keenly focused, vibrant tenor invites Mozart. He has a big future.”
Recent seasons have included debuts with Chicago Opera Theater in the role of Delfa for their production of Giasone, and a return this season for their production of Médée. Of his performance in Giasone, Mark Thomas Ketterson of Opera News commented: Tyler Nelson was hilarious as a travesti Delfa, managing the passaggio of his tenor with notable skill and looking for all the world like Mollie Sugden's Mrs. Slocombe on Are You Being Served?” Venus Zarris of Chicago Stage Review in a review of the production stated that: “Tyler Nelson commits comic operatic highway robbery by embodying all that is hysterical about drag, as Delfa the maidservant to Medea, while simultaneously delivering some of the production’s most superb singing.”

Upcoming engagements include a return to the Castleton festival as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Mozart Requiem and St. John Passion, with the Salt Lake City Choral Artists.