Grammy-winning baritone and New Jersey native John Brancy is a master with “mesmerizing tone,” says OperaWire. This powerhouse graduate of New York’s famed Juilliard School expertly performs across operatic and musical styles. He’s a virtuoso of staged opera, concert performance, and recital.
In the 2024/25 season, Brancy will make debuts at the Opéra Comique, Opéra national du Rhin, Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, PROTOType Festival and Tiroler Festspiele Erl, reprising his acclaimed dual roles of The Artisan and The Collector in Sir George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This. He will also return to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Weinberg’s Lady Magnesia, make his role debut as Marcello in La bohème at Opéra de Montréal, and debut with the Austin Symphony performing Carmina Burana.
Already in his young career, Brancy has taken the New York performance world by storm. Since winning the Marilyn Horne Song Competition in 2013, he has performed multiple times at Carnegie Hall; debuted at Alice Tully Hall with pianist Brian Zeger; and debuted with MasterVoices at Jazz at Lincoln Center as Escamillo in Carmen. He also reprised HEROES for NYFOS in collaboration with Charles Yang and Peter and Kara Dugan, and made his Café Carlyle debut with Peter, ushering in a new era of classical cabaret at the famous venue.
Internationally, Brancy’s performances have been hailed across the globe. In the 2023/24 season, he starred in dual roles at the world premiere of Picture a Day Like This by George Benjamin and Martin Crimp, first at the Aix-en-Provence Festival 75th Anniversary and subsequently at London’s Royal Opera House. The Financial Times called him “remarkable,” and the Telegraph “powerful,” and the New York Times noted him as a baritone with “impressive skill — seamless passaggio between the richly resonant depths of his range and a weightless, dreamy falsetto.”
Further performances in the 2023/24 season included concerts with Insula Orchestra at the Barbican Center (Fauré Requiem), Bayerische Staatsorchester in Munich (Weinberg, Lady Magnesia), Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall (Handel, Messiah; Gordon; The Grapes of Wrath), and at the US Naval Academy (Britten, War Requiem). Additionally, he returned to Festival d’Aix-en-Provence to sing the title role of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria.
Brancy’s collaborations have included conductors Lorenzo Viotti, Helmut Rilling, James Gaffigan, Henrik Nánási, Ken-David Masur, Lawrence Renes, Alexander Prior, Klaas Stok, and Alexander Briger. With a repertoire spanning from Bach to George Benjamin, Brancy has headlined performances with leading orchestras and opera companies, including the LA Phil, San Francisco Symphony, Oper Frankfurt, Boston Symphony, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, and Opera Omaha, among others.
In the 2022/23 season, he made his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra as Jake Wallace in La Fanciulla del West. He took on the role of Franz Wolff-Metternich in the world premiere of La Beauté du Monde, by playwright Michel Marc Bouchard and composer Julien Bilodeau, at Opéra de Montréal, and performed as a soloist with Theater Erfurt in conductor/composer Alexander Prior’s arrangement of Schubert’s Winterreise for orchestra.
Previously, Brancy made his role debut as Guglielmo in two new productions of Mozart’s Così fan tutte at San Francisco Opera and San Diego Opera, receiving great critical acclaim. He performed Duruflé Requiem and Joseph Canteloube songs with the Milwaukee Symphony under the baton of Ken-David Masur, and debuted Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with APEX Ensemble in Montclair, NJ.
He also released a self-produced collaborative album with Avie Records and Vocal Arts DC, The Journey Home: Live from the Kennedy Center, which reunited him with pianist Peter Dugan in a recital program inspired by the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. He produced the recital as a film which aired on WNET and the PBS app AllArts
TV. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune called it “stirring and sobering,” while BroadwayWorld.com called it “timeless.” Brancy also collaborated with Tony Award–winning composer Adam Guettel to create a short film titled Medusa, as part of the song cycle Myths and Hymns, produced by MasterVoices.
Brancy’s solo and concert recitals have taken him across the New York metro area and around the world, with performances at Royal Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Hugo Wolf Akademie, Société d’art vocal de Montréal, Carmel Bach Festival, and the Kennedy Center. At home in NY, he is known as the official anthem singer of Madison Square Garden for NY Rangers NHL Hockey home games.