All we have about him is a promotional text by his agent,
for what it's worth...
Jon Fredric West, a native of Dayton, Ohio, was awarded a full scholarship from Bowling Green State University where he obtained
a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance. He also received grants from The National Opera Institute, The Sullivan Foundation,
and an award from The Liederkranz Foundation. Mr. West received full scholarships from Manhattan School of Music for his Masters
degree as well as for post-graduate studies at the The Juilliard School. Mr. West has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate
from his Alma Mater, Bowling Green State University, for his achievements and contributions to the operatic landscape worldwide.
Jon Fredric West has
established himself as the world's foremost interpreter of the title role in Siegfried and Siegfried in Götterdämmerung.
He has
sung the roles twice as part of the complete Ring Cycle at the Met. He
has also sung previous triumphant performances in both roles in the Ring Cycle at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich,
Deutsche Oper Berlin, Théâtre du Châtelet, as well as at the Canary Islands
Festival. He has sung the title role in Siegfried as part of a new production of the Ring Cycle in Stuttgart that was recorded and
released on DVD through EuroArts and Naxos and won the Best Ring Cycle Award, Best DVD in 2004, and was also listed on the German
Critics Top Ten List for 2004.
Jon Fredric West has further distinguished himself in the title role of Tristan in Tristan und Isolde. Die Welt hailed
him as "the kind of
Tristan you seldom hear with any comparable balance of presentation. Without the least sign of exhaustion, he sings through to the
conclusion with a fresh voice, even in the murderous chain of hallucinations under which he dies to meet Isolde's arrival." He was
chosen by Maestro Maazel and August Everding to sing the role for the re-opening of the Prinzregententheater in Munich. His performance
was subsequently broadcast three times on European Television. Jon Frederic West was included in the book Tradition mit Zukunft,
100 Jahre Prinzregententheater as the seventh Tristan ever to have performed the role in that famous theater. His Tristan has received
great critical acclaim at the Salzburg Festival,
Bayerische Staatsoper, Vienna Staatsoper, Covent Garden,
Berlin Philharmonic on tour in Japan, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Canary Islands Festival, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Dresden,
Opera de Oviedo, Orchestre de Lyon, Teatro Real, Las Palmas, and Opéra de Bordeaux
and the San Sebastian Festival.
Notable operatic engagements also included Siegfried with the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, and New
Orleans Opera; Tannhäuser at Met and in Dresden, La Monnaie in Bruxelles, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Vienna Staatsoper,
Semperoper Dresden, and Teatro Real in Madrid; Canio in Pagliacci at Teatro alla Scala,
San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Stuttgart, and New Israeli Opera; Götterdämmerung with Washington National Opera,
Kaiser in Die Frau ohne Schatten at La Scala, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Vienna Staatsoper; Florestan in Fidelio at Teatro
la Fenice; Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera and Paris. He has sung Samson in Samson et Dalila at
the Met and in Zürich; the title role in Otello in Vienna, Baltimore, and San Francisco; and Luigi in Il tabarro
for his broadcast debut at the Met. He joined Semyon Bychkov for Apollo
in a concert performance of Daphne at the Kennedy Center.
Jon Fredric West has performed extensively in concert and recital with leading orchestras and conductors. He has sung Waldemar in
Schönberg's Gurrelieder with the New York Philharmonic, Florence and May Festivals, and
Bayerisches Rundfunkorchester in Munich; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall;
Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival and Houston Symphony;
BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall in London; the Edinburgh Festival; and in Valencia.
Jon Fredric West has sung Beethoven's Missa solemnis with the Bayerischer
Rundfunk, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the New York Philharmonic as well as
the San Francisco Symphony. The tenor has also sung with the Philadelphia Orchestra,
Saint Louis Symphony, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, the London
Symphony Orchestra, RAI Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Los
Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.
Jon Fredric West's performances of Tristan und Isolde at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich were recorded for Unitel with Jon Fredric West as
Tristan and Waltraud Meier as Isolde. The work was released on DVD by IMAGE in the US.
Jon Fredric West's performance of Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra was
released by Koss Records and his Fidelio, by Mondo Musica.
After a recital of Schubert's Winterreise at the International Keyboard Institute in New York with Jerome
Rose, the duo recorded and released the cycle on Medici Classics. The recording was listed immediately among The Year's Best CDs
by the New Yorker Magazine. Critic Patrick Meanor (Fanfare Magazine) wrote of the tenor: "Though I am not normally a vocal fan,
I was swept away by the heldentenor of Jon Fredric West's deeply moving (heartbreaking, actually) rendition of Schubert's musical
realization of Wilhelm Müller's 'Die Winterreise' poems. Few Wagnerian tenors possess the ability to express both the power and
sweetness of one of Schubert's greatest vocal collections, maybe his greatest... One can understand why West was the Met's star
Siegfried in the Ring Cycle."
