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A native of North Carolina, tenor, David Tayloe has been praised for his “lovely tenor that sings with Mozartean finesse.” David has made appearances with the Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Proms, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Louisiane, Opera Birmingham, Mississippi Opera, Naples Philharmonic, Virginia Arts Festival, Virginia Symphony, Piedmont Opera Company, A.J. Fletcher Institute, LSU Opera, and Frost Opera Theater. His recent roles include Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette, Jason in Medea, Albert in Albert Herring, Gastone in La Traviata, Student in Michael Torke’s Strawberry Fields, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Candide in Bernstein’s Candide, and Mozart in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri. As a concert singer, he has performed frequently as the soloist in Bach cantata series, singing Obadiah in Elijah, the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and the tenor soloist in the Magnificat; other credits include Finzi’s Dies Natalis, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Lord Nelson Mass, Paukenmesse, and Theresianmesse, Schubert’s A-flat Mass, and Britten’s Serenade. Recently, David was seen under the direction of Phillipe Herreweghe at the Snape Proms in a concert of Bach Cantatas and the Mass in D-Minor.

An avid performer of art song, David made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall in January of 2020. He also completed a national tour of Schubert’s Winterreise culminating in a featured recital at the National Opera Center in New York City. He has been an active recitalist in both the US and the UK. David has been a prize winner of The American Prize in the Men’s Art Song category. He has performed at the Cleveland Art Song Festival, SongFest, and Song Collaborators Consortia and continues to be in demand as an active recitalist across the continent. Collaborations with composers on their original work have included Libby Larsen, Ben Moore, Michael Torke, and Jake Runestad, most notably: the premiere of Ben Moore’s Dear Theo; the world premiere of A Page Out of Zen by Ryan Jesperson; and the world premiere of Thomas Sleeper’s Beatrice Bends for her Blue Ball. David is the curator of the Capstone Song Initiative, an annual concert series that promotes the work of living composers in America.

Mr. Tayloe has performed with Seraphic Fire, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and Voices, among other professional ensembles. He has been a performer at the Magnolia Baroque Festival, the Salem Bach Festival, and the Duffy Composers Institute at the Virginia Arts Festival and was twice awarded the Stern Fellowship at Songfest in Los Angeles as well as the recital fellowship. He has collaborated with Martin Katz and participated in master classes with Julius Drake, Christoph Pregardien, Graham Johnson, Renee Fleming, Wolfram Rieger, Craig Terry, Mark Padmore, and Roger Vignoles.

David holds degrees from University of Miami, Louisiana State University, and the Eastman School of Music. Additional studies took him to the Britten-Pears Institute at Snape Maltings in Aldeburg, England. In the fall of 2014, David joined the faculty of The University of Alabama, where he serves Associate Professor of Voice and is actively in demand as guest teacher and clinician around the country