Teacher

A native of Newport Beach, California, tenor Kevin St. Clair pursued musical studies at Chapman University, Yale and the University of Southern California. Following his professional debut as Nemorino in The Elixir of Love with the Los Angeles Guild Opera, he has since performed with the Santa Fe Opera, the Washington National Opera, Opera Pacific and other companies nationwide in a wide variety of roles, including Rodolfo, Hoffmann, Roméo, Nemorino, Ernesto, Don Ramiro and Ferrando. Also trained as a conductor in opera and choral music, he was called upon to conduct two performances in between singing performances of Così fan tutte and La Cenerentola for Ash Lawn-Highland Opera.

Dr. St. Clair had the privilege of singing the tenor solos in the first-ever peformance of Handel’s Messiah in the Walt Disney Concert Hall for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, with whom he has frequently appeared as a concert soloist. Dr. St. Clair appeared in acclaimed film director Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, for which he won an Ovation Award. He performed several solo selections at the 2009 UC Merced Commencement Ceremonies, attended by First Lady Michelle Obama.

Onscreen, Dr. St. Clair was featured on the hit CBS television series How I Met Your Mother and appeared onscreen in the Robin Williams feature film License to Wed. With the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he may be heard on the Grammy-nominated recording of Steve Reich’s You Are Variations, Reich’s Daniel Variations as well as on LeAnn Rimes’ Christmas CD What A Wonderful World. He was also featured on the foreign language diction CDs of Basics of Singing, the most widely used classical voice textbook in the United States.

Dr. St. Clair has won high praise for the combination of musicianship and dramatic intensity he brings to his performances. The New Haven Register, in review of his performance in The Tales of Hoffmann, observed that “he has a beautiful lyric tenor voice, showed a good understanding of French style, and gave an animated performance as Hoffmann.” The Orange County Register praised his work in Orff’s Carmina Burana, saying “Kevin St. Clair’s accurate and emotional portrayal of the excruciatingly high-pitched solo ‘Olin lacus colueram’ uplifted the performance.” The Orange Coast Report called his concert portrayal of Tony in West Side Story “deep and powerful...he sang his solos with great intensity.”

Also in demand as a concert artist and recitalist, Dr. St. Clair has performed in China, Hong Kong, throughout Europe and in the former Soviet Union. He has been a featured soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Pacific Chorale of Los Angeles and the Orange County Master Chorale and has performed at the Aspen Music Festival and the Ojai Music Festival under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Esa- Pekka Salonen, Grant Gershon, Fiora Contino, John Alexander and William Hall.

Dr. St. Clair continues to maintain an interest in helping collegiate-level vocal artists make the trasition from academia to professional performance opportunities. As Associate Director of Engagement for Long Beach Opera, St. Clair developed the LBO Education Artist program, which provides emerging professional artists the opportunity to perform in educational and community outreach programs. He has written, staged, and produced original education programs for arts organizations including Long Beach Camerata Singers (“Miss Carla’s Dream,” based on the works of Carl Orff) and South Coast Opera (staging Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera for children The Boy Who Grew Too Fast).

Dr. St. Clair has taught private and class voice at the University of Southern California while completing doctoral studies there in vocal arts. He currently serves on the music faculty of Cal State Dominguez Hills, where he has taught individual and class voice, music appreciation, and co-directed the Early Music Ensemble. He is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the National Assocation of Teachers of Singing (NATS), and the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM). He currently resides in Huntington Beach, CA with his wife Neda St. Clair, an accomplished professional coach/accompanist and scholar completing a Ph.D in musicology at USC.