Nicholas Phan Joins NY Philharmonic as ST. MATTHEW PASSION Evangelist

Three-time Grammy-nominated tenor Nicholas Phan returns to the New York Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden this spring to sing the Evangelist in Bach's St. Matthew Passion (March 23-25). As one of the tenor's most treasured roles after an estimated 40 or 50 performances, it is especially appropriate that the Evangelist marks his second Bach collaboration with the orchestra, with which he previously performed Bach's Magnificat under the baton of Masaaki Suzuki. He was last heard with the New York Philharmonic in December 2021 performances of Handel's Messiah. The St. Matthew Passion performances follow van Zweden's leadership of the same work with the Hong Kong Philharmonic this past February, which also featured Phan as the Evangelist.

The tenor has made a specialty of the notoriously difficult roles of the Evangelist in both passion settings by J.S. Bach, undertaking them with many ensembles, including the Strasbourg Philharmonic, Oregon Bach Festival, Apollo's Fire, Colorado Symphony and John Nelson's Chicago Bach Project. Reviewing his performance of the role in the St. Matthew Passion with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall, the New York Times observed: "The standout among the vocal soloists was the tenor Nicholas Phan, who brought his youthful, tender yet penetrating voice, as well as flawless German diction and affecting immediacy, to the long, challenging part of the Evangelist, the narrator. He has impressive control of his vibrato, sometimes singing high-lying, plaintive phrases with focused sound and choirboy purity. He was so invested in the narrative, you would have thought he was telling us the passion story for the first time." As Phan reflects about the role: "The writing of the Evangelist is about as spare as one can get. ... Yet even with such austere writing, Bach communicates so much. ... It's an extraordinary compositional feat that contains a plethora of expressive possibility and guidance for the lucky tenor who gets to sing the role." Phan's New York Philharmonic performance coincides with the launch of his BACH 52 project, an ambitious web series exploring the question "Is the music of Bach for everyone?" Comprising 52 episodes, BACH 52 features a film and recording of one tenor aria (or duet) from J.S. Bach's church cantatas in each episode, accompanied by interviews with scholars, musicians, and audience members to probe this question. The choice of 52 arias will allow for a year-long exploration of Bach's music and examination of the relevance of his music to today's increasingly secular and diverse society.

The latest St. Matthew performances also come after Phan's third Grammy nomination, this time for his album Stranger. He sings the world premiere of a new orchestral version of the title work by Nico Muhly with Daniel Hope and the New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco in May and performs the work in its original chamber version at Tanglewood in July. As San Francisco Classical Voice marveled: "If you love Phan's voice and artistry, and if you care about the ongoing reckoning of classical music with racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identity, Stranger is a must."