John Holiday

John Thomas Holiday, Jr. (born 1985), is an American operatic countertenor who has won several major music competitions and has appeared in supporting and leading roles with several American opera companies.

Holiday was born in Houston, Texas to John Holiday, Sr, a welder and Waverly A. Holiday a homemaker. In addition to being a high school English & Literature teacher, his maternal grandmother, Sandra Mathis Franklin, was also the minister of music at his church, which exposed him to music at a very early age. At the age of 2, he began to sing at church. This carried on into his childhood, and John was encouraged to audition for The Fort Bend Boys Choir of Texas (FBBC) under the direction of William R. Adams. He auditioned and was accepted into the FBBC in the second grade. As a member of this choir, he toured the U.S.A and many countries abroad. It was in this choir that he was exposed to opera singer Denyce Graves, who sang the role of Marguerite in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, while performing as one of the treble soloists in the Houston Symphony production in 1997. He credits this performance as the reason why he is an opera singer today.

John graduated from Lamar Consolidated High School in Rosenberg, Texas. While in high school, he was the first chair tenor in the TMEA All-State Mixed Choir for two years and also held the designation as one of the Most Outstanding Performers in Texas according to U.I.L.. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance in 2007 from Southern Methodist University, which he attended on scholarships provided by the university from 2003-2007. While a student at SMU, he frequently won first place at the TEXOMA region of the National Association of Teachers of Singing competition as a student of Barbara Hill-Moore. While at SMU, he did not perform any major operatic roles because early music was rarely done at the university; however, he did sing the role of Gherardino in the school's production of Gianni Schicchi in 2005. While at SMU, in 2004, he became a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity through the Kappa Tau chapter at Southern Methodist University. In 2006, John opened for Jason Mraz at McFarlin Auditorium in Dallas, Texas. In addition to that, he won the Meadows School of the Arts Concerto Competition in 2007. After graduating, he studied voice with Marietta Simpson at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music from 2007-2008 on a full scholarship. Choosing not to complete his degree, John left Bloomington and returned home to Rosenberg to teach Choral Music and Voice at Lamar Junior High School and Lamar Consolidated High School, from August 2008 - December 2009.

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