PATRICK DAILEY:
COUNTERTENOR
Patrick Dailey has been described as possessing “a powerful and elegant countertenor voice” (Los Angeles Daily News) and a “VOCAL STANDOUT” (Boston Classical Review). His artistry was identified early through the national NAACP ACT-SO Competition (2005 and 2006), the NFAA ARTS, and Grady-Rayam Prize In Sacred Music of the Negro Spiritual Scholarship Foundation. Dailey made his professional operatic debut with Opera Saratoga as the first countertenor member of the company's Young Artist program and was the first countertenor invited to Opera New Jersey's Victoria J. Mastrobuono Emerging Artist program. Operatic repertoire includes Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Nerone in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, and Belize in Eötvös' Angels in America. He performs regularly with Harlem Opera Theater, ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared with the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra (NC), Soulful Symphony, Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. On January 19, 2009, Mr. Dailey sang a featured duet with Aretha Franklin as the finale for the annual Let Freedom Ring Celebration at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Additionally, he has been a featured artist with Cook, Dixon, and Young (formally Three Mo’ Tenors) since 2012.
Mr. Dailey his west coast operatic debut as Satirino in Cavalli’s La Calisto with Pacific Opera Project of Los Angeles in 2014. The following year, he debuted with Opera Memphis in their first production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and won first place in Opera Ebony’s 1st Benjamin Matthews Vocal Competition. Later that year, Mr. Dailey performed the opening invocation for the 2015 Trumpet Awards in Atlanta, GA, at the invitation of Trumpet Foundation founder/CEO and Civil Right legend, Xernona Clayton.
In the summers of 2015 and 2016, Mr. Dailey was a young artist with the American Bach Soloists. Soon after he sang the world premiere Frederick Douglas: The Making of an American Prophet composed by Grammy Award winning country songwriter Marcus Hummon and debuted with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Robert Moody. Additionally in 2016, Mr. Dailey made international debuts in the United Kingdom and Brazilian premieres of Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra with the Woodhouse Opera Festival and Il Festival de Ópera Barroca de Belo Horizonte and made his Subculture NYC debut at the invitation of Tony Award winning composer Jason Robert Brown as a part of Brown’s broadway cabaret residency. In the spring of 2017, he debuted with Opera Louisiane as Telemaco in Michael Borowitz’s world premiere jazz-gospel orchestration of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and debuted with the Grand Rapids Symphony singing Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms under the baton of Michael Christie. Soon after, Mr. Dailey returned to the U.K. that fall for the international premiere of Soosan Lolavar’s I.D. Please at the Tete a Tete New Opera Festival in London. In the fall of 2018, he premiered the role of Mini-B/Boris the Boar in Dan Visconti and Cerise Jacobs’s Permadeath: A Video Game Opera with White Snakes Projects in Boston, MA to great acclaim. Mr. Dailey became the first countertenor to appear with Shreveport Opera singing Kyle in Robert Paterson’s Three Way: Masquerade in 2019. The remainder of his 2018/2019 season included debuts and appearances with the Austin Baroque Orchestra the IRIS Orchestra of Memphis, TN, Music By Women Festival, and Boston Early Music Festival. Since then, Mr. Dailey made debuts with the Chicago Philharmonic and Missouri Symphony, was a featured soloist at the 2020 ACDA Southern Regional Conference, and debuted at the historic Ryman Auditorium. The recent 2021/2022 season included debuts with Bourbon Baroque, Nashville Symphony, Gotham Early Music Scene’s Open Gates Project, and the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival. Mr. Dailey’s 2022/2023 season season highlights include debuts and appearances with American Opera Project, Handel Choir of Baltimore, The Thirteen, and Washington Bach Consort as well as the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe’s The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph with the Nashville Symphony.
Mr. Dailey is featured in Fatherhood, a documentary directed by award winning London based director, Ben Gregor, which premiered on FUSE TV in 2019. He is also a featured on recording projects such as the debut album of acclaimed duo and super producers Louis York (Chuck Harmony and Claude Kelly), American Griots (2019), Adrian Dunn’s Redemption Live in Chicago (2020), the self-titled release from The Aeolians of Oakwood University under the direction of Dr. Jason Max Ferdinand (2020), and the Tennessee State University Band and Sir the Baptist’s Grammy winning Urban Hymnal (2022). Mr. Dailey was featured on season 17 of America’s Got Talent with Metaphysic as the operatic singing voice of Terry Crews in a performance Simon Cowell referred to as the “best of the series”.
Growing in his reputation as a scholar, Mr. Dailey was invited to the Center for Black Music Research's inaugural Black Vocality Symposium in 2013 giving a performative presentation entitled "The Anatomy of the Black Voice: Peculiarities, Challenges, and Regional Differences". Since that time, he been Artist-in-Residence, masterclass clinician, and guest lecturer at Southern University, Prairie View A&M University, the University of Arkansas, New England Conservatory, Tufts University, and Vanderbilt University among others. Mr. Dailey was lead soloist and vocal music curator of the official MLK50 Commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum in 2018 in Memphis, TN. In the fall of 2019, he presented at the inaugural Harry T. Burleigh Week organized by the Burleigh Legacy Alliance of Burleigh’s hometown of Erie, PA and regularly presents lectures and programs in conjunction with the organization. In June 2020, Mr. Dailey curated and presented a virtual clinic and webinar entitled “A Stirring in My Soul: The Negro Spiritual and Social Justice Movements” presented by the National Museum of African American Music. He is also visiting artist-in-residence at St. Luke’s Episcopal-Germantown (Philadelphia, PA) where he recently premiered his curated concert, Sankofa Project: A Journey Through Black Music and Artistry presented by Opera Philadelphia and Price Fest.
Mr. Dailey is a 2012 graduate of Morgan State University and received his master of music from Boston University. He currently serves on the voice faculty of Tennessee State University where he established the Big Blue Opera Initiatives (BBOI), the annual Harry T. Burleigh Spiritual Festival, and the Tigre Opera Creation Lab. Additionally, he is the founding artistic director of the W. Crimm Singers, professional ensemble in residence of BBOI. He is a co-founding member of historically informed crossover ensemble, Early Music City.
Mr. Dailey serves on the boards of ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, Nashville Rep, the Artistic Planning Committee of the Nashville Symphony and was recently elected president of the International Florence Price Festival (Price Fest). He also serves as community project curator with Intersection Contemporary Music Ensemble and creative arts coordinator of the NAACP-Nashville Branch. A passionate advocate for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, community development, and education, he serves on Opera America’s Learning and Leadership Council and is a consultant of Early Music America and New Music USA. Dailey is an artist ambassador of the Music Inclusion Coalition, heads Black Opera Alliance’s Education Taskforce and is the program coordinator of the Nashville Opera- HBCU Fellowship, an initiative of the the company in partnership with TSU and Fisk University. Additionally, he develops programming and is a national conductor of the 105 Voices of History National HBCU Choir of which he is a 2008 alumnus.
Mr. Dailey was named to the 2020 class of the Nashville Black 40 Under 40 and was recognized for Outstanding Service from the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts of Washington, DC. Additionally, he is a 2020 recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission. Recently, he was named Best Classical Singer in Nashville Scene magazine’s 2022 Best of Nashville issue.
Mr. Dailey holds membership in the National Association of Negro Musicians, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America, inc