Zach Finkelstein
American-Canadian Zach Finkelstein has quickly established himself as a leading tenor soloist in North America and abroad, from Seattle’s Benaroya Hall to New York’s Lincoln Center to London’s Sadler’s Wells to the National Arts Center in Beijing, China. Recent engagements include a presentation of Messiah with the Seattle Symphony, Bach’s B Minor Mass with Luminous Voices (Calgary), and a series of Bach Cantatas with Montréal’s celebrated Violons du Roy.
In the concert world, Zach is known for his “refined” and “elegant” (Vancouver Observer) interpretation of the works of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart among others. In the spring of 2018, Zach stepped in on an afternoon’s notice for the soloist in Carmina Burana with the Seattle Symphony and was heard again in the role in 2019 with the Kamloops Symphony and the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s staged production. In the past five years, Zach has sung 32 performances of Handel’s Messiah with 14 presenting organizations, including the Virginia Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the Calgary Philarmonic, and the Winnipeg Symphony. Zach also regularly tours as Bach Evangelist in both the Johannespassion and Matthäuspassion across North America- two upcoming engagements include Canada’s Vancouver Chamber Choir and the Florida Symphony- as well as the Bach tenor solos for all the composer’s major works.
Hailed by Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times as a “compelling tenor,” he made his New York City Opera debut as Mambre in Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto. Finkelstein has sung the role of Damon “with sensitivity and grace” (Boston Classical Review) in Acis and Galatea, performances conducted by Nicholas McGegan leading Philharmonia Baroque in Berkeley, CA as well as with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, MA. He made his haute-contre debut as Orphee in back-to-back productions of Gluck’s Orphee et Eurydice with Brava! Opera Theatre (English) and Opera Grand Rapids (French).
Mr. Finkelstein is also an evangelist for new and contemporary classical works, an oeuvre he discovered as a two-time Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival. The Spanish new music opera Comala by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon has become a signature piece for Zach, performed in Guadalajara, Mexico, as well as a four-city tour in the US of the University of Notre Dame, Cleveland, Oberlin College, and Chicago in 2018-2019. Zach has also premiered and recorded two new music pieces for tenor and orchestra written specifically for him, Threshold by Prix-de-Rome winner Jesse Jones and Hold Back Thy Hours by John Liberatore. The New York Times’ James Oestrich commended Zach’s “excellent performance” of Threshold with the Argento Ensemble: “Zach Finkelstein negotiated Mr. Jones’s high tenor flights with aplomb”.
In the last two years, Zach Finkelstein has branched out into the North American vocal chamber music scene, with appearances at the Carmel Bach Festival (2016 Virginia Best Adams Fellow), the Oregon Bach Festival (2018) and on the roster of Conspirare, True Concord, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Calgary’s Luminous Voices, and the South Dakota Chorale. In the 2018-2019 season, Zach joined Conspirare’s Grammy-nominated production of Considering Matthew Shepard as a featured soloist in a 10-city cross-country tour.
Zach’s debut album, ‘Britten and Pears: the Canticles’, featuring acclaimed recitalist Byron Schenkman, singers Vicki St. Pierre and Alexander Hajek, and Seattle Symphony principals Jeffrey Fair (horn) and Valerie Muzzolini Gordon (harp) was launched on October 1st, 2017 on Scribe Records. Zach is currently in post-production on his second full-length album, to be released in 2020 on Scribe Records, entitled ‘Dark is Yonder Town’, featuring guitarist Dieter Hennings Yeomans and new compositions by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Jesse Jones.
Mr. Finkelstein holds an Artist Diploma (Voice) from the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto and a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Political Science from McGill University.
January 2024
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““Finkelstein immediately displayed his golden tone and poetically lyrical phrasing during his opening, and calmly delivered Comfort ye, my People before bursting into Ev’ry Valley, in which he unleashed his vocal pyrotechnics.”
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![“Zach Finkelstein , tenor, as archangel ‘Uriel’, displayed a lyric tenor sound that was warm and smooth in his recitatives. Finkelstein’s musicianship sparkled in the beautiful lines of his aria in Part II.” [ Creation , Toronto Mendelssohn Choir]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea12b219c03680a5cc556d0/1594972912100-NXBW6BIWU02LC5V61G07/zachary_finkelstein_photo_2-850x536.jpg)
