Sought after as a curator and programmer, in addition to his work as artistic director of Art Song Chicago, Phan is the host and creator of BACH 52, a web series examining the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and has developed projects with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, San Francisco Opera Center, and Kaufman Music Center, where he was Artist-in-Residence during the 2023–2024 season. He was also Vocal Artist-in-Residence at San Francisco Performances from 2014–2018. Praised by the Chicago Classical Review as “the kind of thoughtful, intelligent programming that should be a model,” his programs examine themes of identity, highlight underrepresented voices from history, and illuminate the relevance of music from all periods to the present day.

To open the 2026-27 season, Phan curates and performs in Art Song Chicago’s 2026 Collaborative Works Festival. Now celebrating its 16th anniversary season, Art Song Chicago continues to redefine the art song recital as a dynamic and socially engaged form. This year’s festival, taking place September 23–26, 2026, is themed “Songs of the Earth,” and explores humanity’s continually evolving relationship with the environment through the lens of song. Other highlights of the season include headlining the final concert of Orchestra of St. Luke’s annual Bach Festival at Carnegie Hall, and appearances as one of the signature roles in his repertoire: the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Cincinnati Symphony. He tours the title role in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro, and releases Fellow Citizens, his album with pianist Myra Huang, on Avie Records in November 2026, supported by performances at San Francisco Performances and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He also returns to Philharmonia Baroque for Haydn’s Creation, makes his debut with the Houston Symphony in Handel’s Messiah, and appears in recital with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

Phan won the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for his recording of Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. His album, A Change Is Gonna Come, was nominated for the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. His previous albums, Stranger: Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, Clairières, and Gods and Monsters, were nominated for the same award in 2023, 2020 and 2017. He is the first singer of Asian descent to be nominated in the history of the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album category, which has been awarded by the Recording Academy since 1959.

A passionate proponent of vocal chamber music, he has collaborated with many chamber musicians, including pianists Inon Barnatan, Alessio Bax, Jeremy Denk, Richard Goode, Myra Huang, Graham Johnson, Gabriel Kahane, Lisa Kaplan, Craig Terry, Roger Vignoles, and Mitsuko Uchida; violinists James Ehnes, Daniel Hope, Tessa Lark, and Tai Murray; cellist Paul Watkins; guitarist Eliot Fisk; harpists Bridget Kibbey and Sivan Magen; and horn players David Cooper, Daniel Hawkins, Jennifer Montone, Radovan Vlatkovic, and Gail Williams. Chamber ensembles he has collaborated with include The Knights, A Far Cry, Palaver Strings, as well as the Brooklyn Rider, Jasper and Spektral string quartets. In both recital and chamber concerts, he has been presented by Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, San Francisco Performances, Cal Performances, the Aspen Music Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Perpetually working to build the vocal chamber repertoire, numerous new song cycles have been composed for him by many of today’s pre-eminent composers, including Lembit Beecher, Viet Cuong, Vivian Fung, Jake Heggie, Gabriel Kahane, Aaron Jay Kernis, Missy Mazzoli, Joel Puckett, Errollyn Wallen, and Nico Muhly.

A prolific concert artist, Phan regularly appears with many of the leading orchestras in the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New World Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Boston Baroque, Il Pomo d’Oro, Handel and Haydn Society, Bach Collegium Japan, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, and the Lucerne Symphony. He has toured extensively throughout the major concert halls of Europe and has appeared with the Oregon Bach, Ravinia, Marlboro, Edinburgh, Rheingau, Saint-Denis, Music @ Menlo, and Tanglewood festivals, as well as the BBC Proms. Among the conductors he has worked with are Marin Alsop, Harry Bicket, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Karina Canellakis, Mei-Ann Chen, Jonathan Cohen, James Conlon, Alan Curtis, Charles Dutoit, JoAnn Falletta, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, James Gaffigan, Grant Gershon, Alan Gilbert, Jane Glover, Giancarlo Guerrero, Matthew Halls, Manfred Honeck, Bernard Labadie, Louis Langrée, Cristian Măcelaru, Ernest Martínez-Izquierdo, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Tito Muñoz, Riccardo Muti, Kent Nagano, John Nelson, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, George Petrou, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Christian Reif, Helmuth Rilling, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Masaaki Suzuki, Michael Tilson Thomas, Bramwell Tovey, Ruben Valenzuela, Jaap Van Zweden and Franz Welser-Möst.

Phan’s many opera credits include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. His wide-ranging operatic repertoire includes the title roles in Bernstein’s Candide, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Yonas in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater, Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Fenton in Falstaff, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Lurcanio in Ariodante.

As an educator, Phan served on the voice faculty of the DePaul University School of Music from 2018-2020 and currently serves as a coach on the faculty of the San Francisco Opera Center, where he works with the Adler Fellows. He has guest taught (working as both a voice teacher and a coach) at the Eastman School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Michigan, the Merola Opera Program, and the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. In demand as a master class clinician, he has taught master classes for the Tanglewood Music Center, University of Michigan, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, University of Chicago, University of Houston, Longy School of Music, Oregon Bach Festival, American Conservatory Theater, and the San Francisco Girl’s Chorus.

Raised in Ann Arbor, MI, Phan is a graduate of the University of Michigan and is the 2012 recipient of the Paul C. Boylan Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2018 Christopher Kendall Award. He is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and also studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and Ravinia’s Steans Institute.

2026-2027