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Biography

Tenor Jon Garrison has had a brilliant 35 year international career singing with the most prestigious conductors, opera companies and symphony orchestras in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. His operatic debut was as Rinuccio in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi with the New York Metropolitan Opera. Since then, he has sung 21 roles in over 200 performances with The Met including Ferrando, Tamino, Don Ottavio, Belmonte, Romeo, Ernesto, and Nemorino. He has also sung with the opera companies of New York City, Santa Fe, Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, Miami, Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in both Charleston, S.C. and Italy, English National, Scottish, Hamburg, Paris, Bologna, Teatro Colon, La Fenice and more than fifty (50) other companies around the world. Mr. Garrison is a renowned interpreter of 20th and 21st Century music. He has sung the leading tenor role in three operatic world premieres: The Gardens of Adonis by Hugo Weisgall; Holy Blood, Crescent Moon by Stuart Copeland; and Rasputin by Jay Riese; tha American premiere of Mary, Queen of Scots by Thea Musgrave, and the premier performance of The Song of Majnun by Bright Sheng. He also sang the leading role in Die Soldaten by Zimmerman for the English National Opera and Inez de Castro by James MacMillan for the Scottish Opera, both of which were broadcast live throughout Great Britain and Europe by the BBC. Mr. Garrison is also in great demand in the symphonic and concert repertoire, having sung with over 90 different symphonies around the world. He has sung with all the major symphonies in the United States and Canada, and with major orchestras in England, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and the Far East. His symphonic debut was with the New York Philharmonic and Pierre Boulez in Stravinsky's Le Rossignol. Among his many appearances with that orchestra was the role of Klaus Narr in Schoenberg's massive Gurrelieder, conducted by Zubin Mehta in his farewell concert as music director, a performance that was recorded by Deutche Gramaphone. He has sung numerous times with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony, Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra, Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony, Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Montreal Symphony, and Herbert Blomstedt, Loren Maazel, Raymond Leppard, Gerald Schwarz, Christoph Eschenbach, and Franz Welser-Most, among many others. He sang the world premier of Claude Baker's Into the Sun on Leonard Slatkin's inaugural concert as music director of the National Symphony, the American premiere of Hans Werner Henze's Kammermusik with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a nationally televised Beethoven Ninth Symphony for Herbert Blomstedt's first concert as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and a performance as the Evangelist in Bach's St. Matthew Passion conducted by Rymond Leppard and televised live from Lincoln Cathedral to Great Britain and Europe. Mr. Garrison also sang the European premiere of Michael Tippett's The Mask of Time for the BBC Proms Concerts with Andrew Davis conducting, sang and recorded an award-winning Szymanowski Symphony No. 3 with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony, and sang and recorded the title role in Harrison Birtwhistle's The Mask of Orpheus with the BBC Symphony and Andrew Davis, a recording which won the Grammy Award for the best contemporary recording of 1997. He sang the American premiere of Elliot Carter's In Sleep, In Thunder, and has sung it many times since in Europe, Asia and North America.