John Holiday facts for kids

John Thomas Holiday Jr. (born March 31, 1985) is an American opera singer known as a countertenor. This means he sings in a very high voice, similar to a female alto. He performs many types of music, especially old Baroque music and new classical pieces. He has sung in operas, with orchestras, and in special mixed-media shows. John Holiday has also been part of many new music pieces for the first time. He has performed with opera groups across the United States, toured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and sung in cities like Shanghai and in Europe. Besides classical music, he also sings gospel, pop, and jazz. He was even a contestant on season 19 of NBC's The Voice, a popular TV singing competition.

Early Life and Music Beginnings

John Holiday was born in 1985 in Rosenberg, Texas. His father, John Holiday Sr., was a welder, and his mother, Waverly A. Holiday, was a homemaker who loved to sing and play the clarinet. His grandmother, Sandra Mathis Franklin, was a church pianist and music director. John learned to play the piano by watching and copying her, and later learned the organ.

When he was only 6 or 7 years old, he started singing solos in church and at school. He joined the Fort Bend Boys Choir, which led him to sing as a young boy soprano with the Houston Symphony. He once saw a famous opera singer named Denyce Graves perform. He later said, "I'd never seen anyone who looked like me doing what she did. I'd never thought of being an opera singer. To tell the truth, I didn't know that world even existed. I decided that was what I wanted to do."

John Holiday graduated from Lamar Consolidated High School in Rosenberg. During high school, he was a top singer in the All-State Mixed Choir for two years. He was also named one of the Most Outstanding Performers in Texas.

Learning and Training to Sing

John Holiday studied at Southern Methodist University (SMU) from 2003 to 2007, where he earned a bachelor's degree in vocal performance. While at SMU, he won first place in several singing competitions. In 2005, he sang in the school's production of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. He also won a special competition at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts in 2007.

He continued his vocal studies at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music for a year. After that, he returned to Rosenberg and taught choral music and voice at Lamar Junior High School and Lamar Consolidated High School from 2008 to 2009. He then went back to school at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, earning a master's degree in vocal performance in 2012. There, he performed in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto. In 2011, he won first place in the Dallas Opera Guild Competition. He also spent time with the Santa Fe Opera's program for young singers.

Next, he attended Juilliard, a very famous music school, where he earned his Artist Diploma in Opera Studies in 2014. He has mentioned that other famous countertenors, Andreas Scholl and Derek Lee Ragin, were his inspirations.

Opera Career Highlights

John Holiday made his first performance at Carnegie Hall in October 2012. He sang Bernstein's Chichester Psalms with the Atlanta Symphony. He also made his debut at Portland Opera and Cincinnati Opera in the opera Galileo Galilei.

In 2013, he took on the main role in the opera Radamisto at the Juilliard School. That same year, he performed the main role in Giulio Cesare in Egitto at Wolf Trap Opera. In 2014, he sang in his first performance at the Los Angeles Opera in Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

In 2015, he was the first to sing the role of Male Soloist No. 1 in the new opera Paradise Interrupted at the Spoleto Festival USA. He performed this role again in New York and Shanghai.

At the Glimmerglass Festival in 2015, he sang in Vivaldi's Catone in Utica. He returned in 2017 to sing the main role in Handel's Xerxes. In 2015, he also performed in concert versions of Pergolesi's Adriano in Siria in France and Poland.

In January 2017, he won the Marian Anderson Vocal Award, a very important prize. In September 2017, he sang in the new opera We Shall Not Be Moved at Opera Philadelphia. He performed this opera again in March 2018 in the Netherlands, which was his first European performance. He then toured with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, singing Bernstein's Chichester Psalms in New York, London, and Paris.

In December 2019, he sang in Handel's Messiah with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. In February 2020, he performed in the new opera Eurydice at the Los Angeles Opera. He made his debut at the famous Metropolitan Opera in New York with this same opera in December 2021.

Even though many of his shows were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, his concert at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art was shown online. In this concert, John Holiday sang old Italian songs and pieces by Black composers.

In November 2022, he performed in the new opera The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera.

Since 2017, John Holiday has been a professor of music at the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University.

Other Music Styles

John Holiday has also performed jazz and gospel music throughout his career. In 2006, he opened for the Grammy award-winning singer Jason Mraz in Dallas. That same year, he released a jazz album called "The Holiday Guide."

In 2018, he sang the national anthem at a basketball game between the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors at the Toyota Center.

In October 2020, he successfully auditioned for The Voice on NBC. He was coached by the famous singer John Legend and finished in fifth place in the final competition.

He has released three pop songs: “Alive in Me,” “Waste Mine,” and “Love Finds a Way.” The last song also had a remix by DJ Riddler. All these songs were produced by Rob Grimaldi, who is known for working on the BTS song “Butter.”

Personal Life

John Holiday married DeMario Adams on July 30, 2022. The couple lives in Appleton, Wisconsin. He is represented by Fletcher Artist Management. March 31 has been named "John Holiday Day" in Fort Bend County, Texas, where he grew up.

He is also a second cousin to Jimmie Lee Solomon, who was a former Vice President of Major League Baseball.

Major Performances

Opera Performances

• Metropolitan Opera (The Hours, Eurydice (Aucoin))
• Bayerische Staatsoper (Agrippina)
• Lyric Opera of Chicago (Proximity)
• Los Angeles Opera (Dido and Aeneas, Eurydice)
• Philadelphia Opera (We Shall Not Be Moved)
• Dallas Opera (Flight)
• Des Moines Metro Opera (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Flight)
• Quantum Theatre (Idaspe)
• Pittsburgh Opera (We Shall Not Be Moved)
• Wolf Trap Opera (Giulio Cesare)
• Glimmerglass Opera (Catone in Utica (Vivaldi), Xerxes)
• Cincinnati Opera (Galileo Galilei)
• Spoleto Festival USA (Paradise Interrupted)
• National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (We Shall Not Be Moved)
• Apollo Theater (We Shall Not Be Moved)
• Dutch National Opera (We Shall Not Be Moved, Agrippina)
• Boston Baroque (Giulio Cesare)
• Juilliard Opera (Radamisto)
• Portland Opera (Galileo Galilei)
• University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (Giulio Cesare)
• MGM Cotai (Paradise Interrupted)
• Komische Oper Berlin (Akhnaten (opera))

Orchestra Performances

• New York Philharmonic (Messiah, Chichester Psalms)
• Los Angeles Philharmonic (Chichester Psalms)
• Phoenix Symphony (Chichester Psalms)
• Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Messiah)
• Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (Messiah)
• Nashville Symphony Orchestra (Messiah)
• San Antonio Symphony (Messiah)
• Juilliard Orchestra (And Farewell Goes Out Sighing)
• Master Voices NYC (Israel in Egypt (Handel))
• Tours in America, France and the U.K. with Gustavo Dudamel and Los Angeles Philharmonic (Chichester Psalms)

Awards and Honors

Leadership Roles

• Board of Trustees, Opera Parallele
• Board of Trustees, Bruce Foote Foundation
• Meadows 2050 Council, Meadows School of The Arts