Winner of the 2021 Washington Performing Arts’s Ambassador of the Arts Award and the Kennedy Center’s 2019 Marian Anderson Vocal Award, Soloman Howard garners high praise from the press for his vivid performances on the great opera and concert stages of the world. His voice is described as “sonorous” by The New York Times, “superhuman” by The Denver Post, and “a triumph” by The Guardian.
Mr. Howard’s 23-24 season begins with Barry Kosky’s new production of Das Rheingold at The Royal Opera House, where he will perform the role Fafner. He returns to The Metropolitan Opera for performances of Timur in Turandot, and role debuts in La Forza del Destino as Il Marchese di Calatrava and Il Padre Guardiano. Mr. Howard also makes his house debut at Staatsoper Hamburg in Rigolotto as Sparafucile. He will perform the role of Hunding in the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra's tour of Die Walküre, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. To conclude the season, Mr. Howard returns to Santa Fe Opera to perform Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni.
Last season Mr. Howard made his debut as Ramfis in Aida at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden with Sir Antonio Pappano leading a new production by Robert Carsen, and performed the role of Le Grand Inquisiteur at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in the company’s new production by Sir David McVicar of Don Carlos under the baton of Enrique Mazzola. Other operatic appearances of the season included Sarastro in The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera, Fafner in Das Rheingold at The Dallas Opera, and the title role of Approaching Ali with Opera Las Vegas.
For the Washington National Opera, Mr. Howard has bowed as Fafner in Der Ring des Nibelungen directed by Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and conducted by Philippe Auguin, as well as in leading roles in The Magic Flute, Show Boat, Approaching Ali, Don Giovanni, and Nabucco. He was heralded for the roles of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the world premiere of the revised edition of Appomattox composed by Philip Glass in a production by Tazwell Thompson and in the title role of The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me written by Jeanine Tesori and J.D. McClatchy.
On the concert stage, he has given performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Music Director Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a European tour and with Christian Arming and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra on tour in Asia. He has joined Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society for Mozart’s Requiem, Kent Tritle and the Oratorio Society of New York in performances of Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht at Carnegie Hall, and with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra in a concert presentation of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier.
Washington Performing Arts’s Ambassador of the Arts Award was created in 2013, annually recognizing extraordinary achievement, service, and advocacy in the performing arts by an individual. Winner of the 2021 Award, Mr. Howard has been a voice not only for artistic excellence but for inclusivity, working to share the arts with ever larger and more widespread audiences from all walks of life. Past recipients of the Ambassador of the Arts Award include Jessye Norman, Leon Fleisher, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Denyce Graves, and Lonnie G. Bunch III.
The Anti-Defamation League presented Mr. Howard with its “Making a Difference Award” in the summer of 2016 for raising awareness of voting rights though his performances of Appomattox at the Kennedy Center; and for bringing opera into the larger community. A graduate of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, Mr. Howard is a proud alumnus of the Manhattan School of Music and of Morgan State University.
