Nathan Gunn

Popular baritone Nathan Gunn has sung a huge variety of operatic roles in several languages, from Figaro in the Barber of Seville and Marcello in La bohème to Paul in Daron Hagen's Amelia (at the May 2010 world premiere) and Riolobo in Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas. Gunn has also sung Lancelot in Lerner and Loewe's classic Broadway musical Camelot and has appeared on a highly successful crossover Sony Classical release, Just Before Sunrise (2007). As many observers have noted, Gunn's popularity can't be fully explained by his rich and powerful baritone voice and broad repertory: throngs of his adoring admirers gush over his handsome looks and charismatic stage presence. Gunn has appeared at the Met in over 100 performances and at most other major American opera houses. Overseas, he has sung at Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, and the Bavarian State Opera. Gunn has also regularly appeared on the concert stage and in recital. In 2020, he was heard on a recording of Ricky Ian Gordon's chamber opera, Ellen West. Nathan Gunn was born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1970. He studied music at the University of Illinois under William Miller and John Wustman. In the 1990s, he won scores of awards, including the Collegiate MacAllister Award (1993) and the Marian Anderson Award (1996). He also won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition in 1994. By the late '90s, Gunn was a major presence on the vocal scene, having appeared twice at Carnegie Hall with conductor Robert Shaw, first in Brahms' German Requiem and then in Haydn's The Creation. Gunn also sang on the Grammy Award-winning 1998 Shaw recording of Bartók's Cantata profana and Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem on Telarc. In 2000, Gunn appeared at the Paris Opera as Andrei in Prokofiev's War and Peace, an Arthaus Musik DVD that has received broad critical acclaim. Gunn debuted at Covent Garden in 2002 as Harlekin in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Since 2007, Gunn has served as a voice professor at the University of Illinois, and since 2013, has served as a co-director of Lyric Theatre @ Illinois with his wife, pianist Julie Gunn. Together, Julie and Nathan started the Shot in the Dark production company. At the 2008 Glyndebourne Festival, Gunn appeared as Father Delura in Peter Eötvös' Love and Other Demons; this performance was recorded and released in 2013 on the Glyndebourne label. Gunn earned a Grammy Award in 2009 for his performance in the title role of Britten's Billy Budd. In 2009, Gunn issued the EMI recording American Anthem, a collection of songs by Barber, Bolcom, Copland, and others. He starred in the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon's opera Cold Mountain at the Santa Fe Opera in 2015; this performance was recorded and issued in 2016 by PentaTone Classics. Gunn premiered Hershey Felder's Flying Solo in 2018, a one-man show using Gunn's life and family history as the subject. In 2020, he was heard on a recording of Ricky Ian Gordon's 2019 chamber opera, Ellen West, on the Bright Shiny Things label.