One of America's most versatile tenors and enlightened musicians, George Shirley remains in demand nationally and internationally as performer, teacher, and lecturer.

He has won international acclaim for his performances with the Metropolitan Opera and with major opera houses and festivals in England, Germany, Austria, Argentina, the Netherlands, Monte Carlo, Colombia, Scotland, Italy, Japan, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Santa Fe, and Detroit, among others.

Mr. Shirley has recorded for the RCA, COLUMBIA, DECCA, ANGEL, VANGUARD, C.R.I, CAPRICCIO, PHILIPS, and ALBANY labels, receiving a GRAMMY AWARD in 1968 for his role (FERRANDO) in the prize-winning RCA recording of Mozart's COSI FAN TUTTE. He has performed over 80 operatic roles throughout his 64-year career, as well as oratorio and concert literature with some of the world’s most renowned orchestras in Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Canada, and Asia led by stellar conductors such as Solti, Stravinsky, Leinsdorf, Ormandy, Klemperer, Bernstein, Lewis, Maazel, Davis, von Karajan, Schippers, Steinberg, Ozawa, DePriest, et al. As recitalist, he has collaborated with William Bolcom, Charles Wadsworth, Philip Eisenberg, Martin Isepp, Jonathan Brice, Sylvia Lee, John Wustman, Kelly Wyatt, George Posell, and Martin Katz, to name but a few.

He was the first black high school vocal music teacher in the Detroit Public Schools and has taught in China and South Africa. The first black United States Army Chorus member in Washington, D.C., he became the first black tenor and the second African-American male to sing leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera, remaining there for eleven years as a leading artist.

George Shirley is The Joseph Edgar Maddy Distinguished University Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. In 2015, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, and in 2022, Opera America inducted him into their new Hall of Fame. In 2023, he received the OPERA NEWS magazine and Sherrill Milnes VOICE awards.

Alaina Brown

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