He is a tenor born in the Midwest who studied vocal performance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music with his graduation in 1996.
He debuted in 1998 with the Wolf Trap Opera Company in Virginia, in the opera Cosi fan Tutte where he played the role of Fernando and has since gone on to appear in productions such as Treemonisha by Scott Joplin with the Saint Louis Opera Company, The Messiah with the Handel/Haydn Oratorio Society and the world premiere of Sacco and Vanzetti by Anton Coppola stages by Opera Tampa.
Gaining acclaim he has been a member of The American Tenors, seeing success with them in their self-titled Top 5 chart album and has appeared nationally as a solo artist with the Kansas City Ballet on three world premieres and orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Irish Radio Orchestra.
In 2005 he was honoured as one of the Alumni of the Year by the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the following year he went into collaboration and appeared all over America on the Mozart Was a Punk: How to Make Classical Music Not Suck tour with the classical guitarist Beau Bledsoe. In 2007 they released their album Departure which has them performing songs and works by a wide range of composers such as Puccini, Dowland and Villa-Lobos. 2008 came along and he found himself recording a CD of American spirituals in his grandmother’s memory, being the artistic director of Musical Theater Heritage, co-founding KCMetropolis.org and performing/leading I Do! I Do!: A Musical About Marriage.
In 2011 he directed and performed in “Homecoming, An Evening With Virgil T” and he also produced the American Tenors national tour. The following year he was a co-founder of the duo Gulley/Granner.
Nathan Granner and Beau Bledsoe recordings
The Ash Grove (Traditional Welsh/Thomas Oliphant)
Tzigane CDNB-202 (CD: Departure)
Tenor – Nathan Granner
Guitar – Beau Bledsoe
Here he is singing “Il Mio Tesoro”…
Sources:
- http://www.tenornathangranner.com/
- http://www.grannerbledsoe.com/Bios.html
- http://www.ama.bz/artists/16-nathan-granner
- http://www.theamericantenors.com/about.php
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Granner
- http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=53289
- http://www.grannerbledsoe.com/CDs.html