Filipino countertenor, Kyle Sanchez Tingzon, has bagged the first prize at an opera singing competition on August 20 in Wisconsin, USA.
The Handel Aria Competition which started in 2013 recognizes emerging singers from around the world as they explore the repertoire of Baroque composer Georg Friedrich Handel best known for the “Hallelujah Chorus” in his Messiah oratorio.
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Kyle was among seven finalists chosen from 150 applicants around the world and each sang two arias by Handel, with Kyle performing a rendition of “Furibondo spira il vento” from the opera Partenope, followed by a performance of “O sacred oracles of Truth” from the oratorio Belshazzar.
The finalist performances were accompanied by the Madison Bach Musicians, directed by Trevor Stephenson. Kyle was a featured soloist at the International Bamboo Organ Festival in Las Piñas and was a street singer and a featured soloist in a performance of Bernstein’s Mass in Singapore.
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In 2020, he won third prize at the Rochester International Vocal Competition in New York and is currently based in San Francisco, where he is pursuing postgraduate studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, under César Ulloa.
He has performed in operas including Claudio Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (as Ottone), scenes from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (as Baba the Turk), Handel’s Xerxes (as Arsamenes), and Cristoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (as Orfeo). (AW)
