In the five years since Zach left his political consulting career, he has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Sadler’s Wells, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Benaroya Hall and the New York City Center. Recently hailed by Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times as a “compelling tenor,” American-Canadian Zach Finkelstein made his New York City Opera debut in April 2013 as Mambre in Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, a production dubbed by Tommasini as one of the Top 10 classical events of 2013.
In the 2014-2015 season, Zach makes his debut with the Seattle Symphony as tenor soloist in the ‘Mozart Requiem’ with Ludovic Morlot conducting. Zach will also sing Damon onstage with the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) in their coast-to-coast production of Handel’s ‘Acis and Galatea’. The Philharmonia Baroque’s Nic McGegan will conduct in the world premiere choreography at Berkeley, CA; the Handel and Haydn Society East Coast premiere in Boston, MA; as well as at Lincoln Center, NYC for the Mostly Mozart Festival; at the Krannert Center in Urbana, IL; and the Kauffman Theatre in Kansas City, MO. In November 2014, Zach will record his first album with the internationally renowned Berliner Philharmoniker’s Scharoun Ensemble in Germany: the new music composition ‘Threshold’ for tenor and orchestra, by Prix-de-Rome winner and fellow Tanglewood alum Jesse Jones.
In 2013-2014 Zach toured Satie’s monodrama Socrates- “beautifully sung”, according to the Daily Telegraph and “impeccably done” by the Seattle Times- and Beethoven’s The Muir in London, UK and Seattle, WA with the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG). Other 2013-2014 engagements include Zach’s Chicago debut with Nicholas Kraemer’s ‘Music of the Baroque’; Arvo Pärt’s ‘Stabat Mater’ with the Art of Time Ensemble in Toronto; Handel’s Messiah with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony; Mozart’s ‘C-Minor Mass’ at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall with the Northwest Chamber Chorus; Mozart ‘Requiem’ with the Seattle Chamber Singers; and Mozart’s ‘Coronation Mass’ with Jordan de Souza’s Ottawa Choral Society. As a recitalist this season, Zach will perform with Dan Anastasio, in Toronto with Rachel Andrist and sing Britten’s ‘Canticle V’ and ‘Birthday Hansel’ at New York City’s National Opera Center with harpist Tomina Parvanova.
In the 2012-13 season he also toured Socrates and The Muir with the Mark Morris Dance Group in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Purchase, NY, Princeton and Fairfax, VA. Previous MMDG engagements include productions of Stravinsky’s Renard at Lincoln Center and Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts. Other concert engagements in 2012-13 included premieres of new works for tenor and orchestra by Jesse Jones and John Liberatore; the Mozart Requiem with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Bach Magnificat and Saint-Saëns’ Weihnachtsoratorium with the Toronto Classical Singers, Bach Cantata 60 with Metropolitan Opera conductor Matt Aucoin in Salem, MA , and Messiahs with both the Ontario Philharmonic and Julian Wachner’s Trinity Wall Street in New York at Lincoln Center.
Last summer, Zach sang Sir Phillip Wingrave/Narrator in Banff Opera’s production of Owen Wingrave, conducted by Guildhall’s Dominic Wheeler, and performed Britten art song as a Britten Pears Young Artist in Aldeburgh, UK under the tutelage of Ian Bostridge. A Vocal Fellow for two summers at Tanglewood, he was singled out as a “remarkable tenor” for his performances in Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! at the Festival of Contemporary Music.
In the media, Zach has performed opera excerpts on CBC’s ‘Saturday Afternoon at the Opera’ as well as Toronto’s Classical 96.3 FM. John Terauds, music critic for the Toronto Star, recently profiled Zach as one of Toronto’s “great tenors” on MusicalToronto.org. In their Summer 2013 issue, Opera Canada also profiled Zach as an ‘Artist On Stage’ and have reviewed him previously as a “lovely light tenor”. In February 2014, the Pacific Northwest’s King FM 98.1 interviewed Zach on his performances of ‘Socrates’ with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Mr. Finkelstein is currently with Dean Artists Management and 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, in Montreal. He studies privately with Lorna Macdonald in Toronto, Canada.