Jubilant Sykes (born 1960,

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

) is an American

baritone A baritone is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the bass (voice type), bass and the tenor voice type, voice-types. It is the most common male voice. The term originates from the ...

. Norris, Michele
A Jubilant Voice: Classically Trained Singer Jubilant Sykes, in the Spotlight

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, 16 December 2002

Biography

Sykes was raised in Los Angeles, where he sang

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...

as a boy. He is

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

. He has performed with

Christopher Parkening Christopher William Parkening (born December 14, 1947) is an American classical guitarist. He holds the Chair of Classical Guitar at Pepperdine University under the title Distinguished Professor of Music. Biography Parkening was born in Los Ange ...

and other artists, and has appeared in such venues as the Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London's Barbican Centre, the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Bowl, New Orleans Jazz Festival and hundreds of other major venues around the world. Sykes performed the role of the Celebrant in the Grammy Award-nominated 2009 recording of

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was th ...

's ''Mass'', with the Morgan State University Choir and

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore SO has its principal residence at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where it performs more than 130 concerts a year. In 2005, ...

under

Marin Alsop Marin Alsop (; born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor. She is the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimor ...

, for

Naxos Records Naxos comprises numerous companies, divisions, imprints, and labels specializing in classical music but also audiobooks and other genres. The premier label is Naxos Records, which focuses on classical music. Naxos Musical Group encompasses about ...

Discography

*''Jubilant'' (

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...

, 1998) *''Wait for Me'' (Sony, 2001) *''Jubilation'' (

Angel Records Angel Records was a record label founded by EMI in 1953. It specialised in European classical music, classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc. The famous Recording Angel trademark ...

, 2007) *''Jubilant Sykes Sings Copland and Other Spirituals'' (

Ariola Records Ariola (also known as Ariola Records, Ariola Express, Ariola-Eurodisc and BMG Ariola) is a German record label. In the late 1980s, it was a subsidiary label of the Bertelsmann Music Group, which in turn has become a part of the international ...

, 2010)

References

External links

Interview with Jubilant Sykes
April 23, 1998 21st-century African-American male singers 21st-century American male singers 20th-century African-American male singers 20th-century American male opera singers African-American male opera singers American operatic baritones Living people Singers from Los Angeles 1960 births Classical musicians from California {{US-opera-singer-stub