Hao Jiang Tian Internationally-renowned opera singer

田浩江

Opera Singer

Hao Jiang Tian, born in Beijing, has sung over 1400 performances of 50 operatic roles worldwide. The only Chinese who has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera for 20 years, he has sung with legendary opera stars such as Pavarotti, Domingo, Te Kanawa, Fleming, Netrebko, among others. He has performed with almost all the famous opera conductors of today, such as Levine, Maazel, Mehta, Gergiev, Ozawa, among others. Tian has also been highly praised for his appearances in many international theaters such as the Staatsoper Berlin, Teatro Comunale in Florence, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Arena di Verona, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Washington National Opera, and opera houses in France, Belgium, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Chile, Russia, Japan and China.

Tian’s credits in Chinese modern opera include a number of world premieres: the role of General Wang in Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera opposite Plácido Domingo; the title role of Guo Wenjing’s Poet Li Bai in Central City Opera, also reprised in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Rome; at the San Francisco Opera, the role of Chang in Amy Tan’s Bonesetter’s Daughter; the title role in The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci in Hong Kong; and as Mr. Pan in Le Peintre, Yu-lin with the Taiwan Philharmonia in Taipei; and recently as Liu Siye in Guo Wenjing’s opera Rickshaw Boy at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing.

Video recording credits include Gomez’s Il Guarany (on Sony Classical), Tan Dun’s The First Emperor (EMI Classics), La Fanciulla del West and Simon Boccanegra (Deutsche Grammophon), all with Plácido Domingo, his solo album of opera arias (Naxos) and his Chinese art songs, Over the Ocean. Tian was nominated as a Principal Soloist for the 51st Grammy Award (2008) for Best Opera Recording of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor. His autobiography, “Along the Roaring River: My Wild Ride from Mao to the Met”, was published by Wiley and Sons as a Lincoln Center Book. A PBS special, based on this book, was made in 2009 and aired nationwide. CNN featured him and his one-man show Sing Brother Sing in Talk Asia in 2012.

Tian received his master degree in voice from Lamont School of Music, Denver University which honored him as a distinguished alumnus with the Professional Achievement Award (2008) and the Arts and Humanity Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award (2014). A Committee of 100 member, Tian has been the founder and artistic director of iSING! International Young Artists Festival since 2011, an initiative of introducing Mandarin as a lyric language to the opera world. This music, cultural and educational Festival has attracted world-wide attention and made its American debut concert at Lincoln Center in 2013. Highlights of his 2015-2016 engagements include Gremin in Eugene Onegin at the Marinski Opera, conducted by Valery Gergiev during the White Night Festival in St Petersburg; Oroveso in Norma at NCPA; Ramfis in Aida, with conductor Zubin Mehta; Liu Siye in Rickshaw Boy in Genoa, Florence, and Turin; Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra with Plácido Domingo in the title role, and a music theater work that became a box-office hit both in Taipei and Beijing, In Search of Time Past, at the Olympic international Theatre Festival, Beijing; and his New York appearance in the role of Timur in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera in November, 2015.

On July 4, 2011, Tian was an honoree of the “Great immigrants: Pride of America” and appeared on a full-page ad by Carnegie Corporation in the New York Times.

On May 9, 2015, Tian was a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.