Davóne Tines

Heralded as “a singer of immense power and fervor” by the Los Angeles Times, Davóne Tines came to international attention during the 2015/16 season in breakout performances at the Dutch National Opera premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains directed by Peter Sellars and at the Ojai Music Festival presenting works by Caroline Shaw and Kaija Saariaho with the Calder Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Highlights of the 2019/20 season include the European premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state with Ilan Volkov conducting the BBC Symphony, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony, John Adams’ El Niño with David Robertson and the Houston Symphony, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Stéphane Denève and the Saint Louis Symphony. Davóne Tines appeared throughout the season on numerous concert stages in collaboration with the Dover Quartet and was presented by Carnegie Hall, Celebrity Series of Boston, Da Camera Society of Houston, and Vocal Arts DC in his first American recital tour with pianist Adam Nielsen.

Davóne Tines was co-creator and co-librettist (with Zack Winokur and composer Michael Schachter) of The Black Clown, a music theater experience inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem of the same name that animates a black man’s resilience against America’s legacy of oppression by fusing vaudeville, opera, jazz, and spirituals to bring Hughes’ verse to life onstage. The world premiere was given by the American Repertory Theater in 2018 and presented by Lincoln Center in 2019.

As a founding core member of the American Modern Opera Company, Davóne Tines has been featured in a wide array of productions including Henze’s El Cimarrón and John Adams’ Nativity Reconsidered, both presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the original work Were You There with music by Matthew Aucoin and Michael Schachter.

In 2019, Tines made his Opera Theatre of Saint Louis debut in the world premiere of Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Terence Blanchard and Kasi Lemmons, based on the memoir of the American journalist, commentator and New York Times op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow. John Adams and Peter Sellars’ Girls of the Golden West was the platform for Tines’ San Francisco Opera debut, and the work was later given its European premiere by Dutch National Opera. He has appeared at the Opéra National de Paris, Teatro Real, and Finnish National Opera in Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains directed by Peter Sellars; and made his Brooklyn Academy of Music debut as Freddie Stowers in Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing in a production by Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus. He reprised that role in concert for his debut with LA Opera in 2018. Additional highlights include a new production of Oedipus Rex at Lisbon’s Teatro Nacional de São Carlos led by Leo Hussain, and Handel’s rarely staged serenata Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo at National Sawdust in a new production by Christopher Alden.

Tines’ concert appearances include performances of John Adams’ El Niño with Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Kaija Saariaho’s True Fire with the Orchestre national de France, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Royal Swedish Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony and with Pablo Res Broseta and the Seattle Symphony, and a program exposing the Music of Resistance by George Crumb, Julius Eastman, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Caroline Shaw with conductor Christian Reif and members of the San Francisco Symphony at SoundBox.

Tines is a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, recognizing extraordinary classical musicians of color who, early in their career, demonstrate artistic excellence, outstanding work ethic, a spirit of determination, and an ongoing commitment to leadership and their communities. He also is the recipient of the 2018 Emerging Artists Award given by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a graduate of Harvard University and The Juilliard School.