Canti Classics
Kenneth Gayle

 

Kenneth Gayle

 

“Neither scenery nor intricate lighting is required when a singing actor of his caliber takes the stage…” declared the Chicago Sun Times. Hailed as one of the "Faces to Watch" and “…one of a new breed of opera singers…” Kenneth Gayle is accumulating accolades in a growing career in opera, oratorio, concert and stage. The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Chicago Tribune and others have acclaimed his performances alternately for “fervent singing”, “…ringing high-notes”, “natural acting abilities” and “handsome voice”.

As a cast member of the staged concert Three Mo’ Tenors, Mr. Gayle has appeared on FOX Television's national broadcast of the 2004 NAACP Image Awards. Equally at home in a variety of musical styles and genres, other national credits include performances with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Ravinia Music Festival, Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony, Grant Park Music Festival, Opera Omaha, Omaha Symphony and Opera Idaho among others.

In recent seasons he has appeared to acclaim as Don Jose (Carmen), Rodolfo (La Boheme), and Werther, and as a beloved interpreter of oratorio, song, and popular music. Mr. Gayle has appeared in the Chicago area additionally as a soloist with the Grant Park music festival, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Chicago Cultural Center and with orchestras including the Elgin Symphony, the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, the New Philharmonic and the Chicago Sinfonietta. In the Pacific Northwest he has appeared as a guest of the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Spokane Symphony, the Seattle Choral Company and the International Music Festival among others.

Mr Gayle is an alumnus of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists and a cum laude graduate of the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University. The Seattle native is also a past recipient of the Seattle Opera Guild scholarship for voice and opera theater and a former member of the Seattle Opera Young Artist Program.

His eclectic musical tastes and artistic discipline were shaped by early piano and voice training and by age sixteen he had performed in Canada, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Japan and throughout the Northwestern United States as a member of the Northwest Boychoir.