Jonathan Tetelman is a dedicated transformative artist and performer. Last fall, Deutsche Grammophon signed the extraordinary tenor. On August 5, 2022, he now presents his debut album Arias on the label. The music was recorded in the unique acoustics of the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in Las Palmas in excellent collaboration with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria under the direction of Karel Mark Chichon. Tetelman impresses in French and Italian repertoire with agile technique, moving emotionality and a fascinating palette of tonal colors.
"Singing makes me who I am," says Jonathan Tetelman. It is his means of expression and his source of strength and it has been part of his life from the beginning. Already at Princeton's American Boychoir School, as a member of a touring boys' choir, he discovered the fascination of performing classical music, which later led him to the Manhattan School of Music. He graduated there as a baritone at age 22. This was followed by a period of self-discovery for Tetelman. He did not feel at home in the baritone profession for a further career, but at the same time lacked direction and perspectives. So he took a break and worked for three years as a DJ in New York clubs. But classical music would not let go of him. "I felt completely lost - it was as if a piece of me had disappeared," says Tetelman. So he ended his sabbatical, took lessons again and transformed himself, with immense discipline, from baritone to tenor. "Since then I know that if I want to achieve something, I can, but I need a good reason to do it," says Tetelman.
The effort has borne fruit - the tenor, who is now in high demand worldwide and on the threshold of a major opera career, possesses extraordinary tonal richness and a powerful and warmly resonating voice, a "lyrical voice with great power," as he himself says, a "romantic voice in the classical sense". But Tetelman is not only a gifted vocal artist whose instrument has undergone an impressive development. He is also a passionate stage performer who commits himself wholeheartedly to the respective roles and parts. "I love working out the psychological aspects of the characters," says the singer, "it is fascinating every time to explore who the person in the piece really is and how he develops over the course of the plot.
His debut album Arias, which the 33-year-old now releases, is for the performer an important "confirmation of the hard work, the proverbial blood, sweat and tears that I have invested in my singing, my art and my voice".
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