John McCollum

John M. McCollum (February 21, 1922 – October 30, 2015) was an American tenor who had an active singing career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s through the 1970s. As an opera singer he performed with companies throughout North America, mostly working with second tier opera houses. He was much more successful as a singer of oratorios and other works from the concert repertoire, and enjoyed a particularly productive and lengthy relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a concert singer he sang a wide repertoire but drew particular acclaim for his performances in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Born in Coalinga, California, McCollum first worked as a journalist and magazine publisher before deciding to pursue a singing career. He began studying voice with Mynard Jones in Oakland, California and then moved to New York City in the early 1950s where he became a pupil of Edgar Schofield. He also studied at the Tanglewood Music Center under Boris Goldovsky.

McCollum made his first concert appearance in NYC as the tenor soloist in a production of Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Church of the Ascension in November 1951 with soprano Beverly Wolff and bass-baritone Paul King. In 1952 he tied for first place in the American Theatre Wing's singing contest with soprano Helen Clayton. That same year he made his Carnegie Hall debut singing Prince Vasiliy Ivanovich Shuysky in a concert version of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov with conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic. In 1953 he made his first appearance in a staged opera as Fenton in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff with Goldovsky's New England Opera Theatre. That same year he made his first appearance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) as the tenor soloist in Hector Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette with soprano Jennie Tourel.

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