Before and after: Pivotal moments for Grammy Award winner Nicholas Phan
From Interlochen Arts Camp to five Grammy Award nominations, Phan is on a journey to touch hearts and minds through his music.
Nicholas Phan. Photo credit: Clubsoda Productions.
For tenor Nicholas Phan (AS 93-94, IAC 95-96), winning his first Grammy Award on Feb. 2 didn’t bring any obvious changes to his life. He boarded a red-eye after the awards ceremony and headed to New Hampshire for a master class and recital. In the five weeks since then, he has been on stage 15 times, with performances in Maine, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, California, New York, and Portugal. Still, he looks at his work on the recording of Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater, winner of Best Opera Recording at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, as pivotal.
The recording of the 2006 opera by the Finnish composer was made with the San Francisco Symphony in 2023. At the time, Saariaho was suffering from brain cancer. Days before the premiere, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen received word that Saariaho was nearing the end of her life. He arranged for a live stream of a rehearsal. Within twelve hours, Saariaho died.
Of the experience, Phan said, “The idea that this all won a Grammy feels like the most extraordinary tribute to her legacy and to this particular work. I think all of us felt not just because of the subject matter, but also because of the timing, that the project was a really important artistic highlight in all of our professional lives. I feel like it's one of those moments where there's a before and an after, and I feel different as an artist after having experienced this amazing project.”
It’s not unlike the way Phan described his time at Interlochen Arts Camp, especially the summer of 1995. “There’s a before that summer and there’s an after that summer, and I’ve been living the after ever since,” Phan said. He studied violin throughout his childhood in Ann Arbor and attended Interlochen’s All State program for two years as a violinist. But as an eight-week Camp student in 1995, he realized he had a calling as a singer rather than an instrumentalist. And even though he was a theatre major, appearing in productions of The Gondoliers and Candide, that summer solidified his passion for classical music.
Even though it was 30 years ago, he still credits Interlochen with giving him creative tools that he uses to this day. “Classical singing can be so technical. Studying theatre at Interlochen gave me the artistic foundation to add to the technical things that I rely on as a classical singer.”
But Interlochen and the arts in general are about more than technical and creative tools: for Phan, it’s about connecting with our humanity. “In an increasingly secular world, I think arts are important because the arts are the place where we have the chance to meditate on our humanity more so than any other space,” Phan said. “It’s how we share our narratives and find the commonalities of human experience that bring us together. In this day and age those things are more important than ever. The arts are also a place where we can process all of our emotions, including anger, in a way that is healing and transformative. The arts are the soul of humanity. Without that, we’re not human.”
This year wasn’t Phan’s first trip to the Grammys. His first nomination came in 2017, for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Three more nominations in the Best Classical Solo Vocal category followed–in 2020, 2022, and 2024. His two most recent solo-nominated projects are rooted in Phan’s perspective on the importance of the arts as an instrument of healing and transformation.
“I know some people who are doing some truly heroic work, and it's kind of like, ‘Okay, so I'm going to sing for a living.’ That can feel a little selfish. So I've always had this awareness that what we do as artists is an act of community service. I also feel like we have to have a reason for what it is that we do, so I want to lean into these questions of the moment, the historical moment in which we live. And rather than pull people apart, I'm much more interested in bringing people together, winning hearts and minds.”
His other 2024 nomination, A Change is Gonna Come, is a collection of 1960s protest songs. “It speaks to the moment by underlining how crucial it is to listen to the voice of dissent and maintaining the right to protest, and how that right is a sacred one,” Phan said of his collaboration with Palaver Strings and vocalist Farayi Malek.
Stranger: Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, nominated in the Best Solo Classical Vocal category in 2022, is a song cycle exploring the American immigrant experience. As the child of first- and second-generation immigrants, Phan has had to wrestle with his own notions of what it means to be American. He’s not afraid to make an audience uncomfortable. “I think it's good to be a little uncomfortable. Not everybody's up for that all the time, but in that discomfort is the only way we find vulnerability, and vulnerability is the only way we find connection. And we have to connect if we hope to evolve.”
Beyond all the talk of pivotal moments and humanity and transformation, Phan remembered something that Interlochen’s long-time operetta instructor, Dude Stephenson, used to say. He told the students, “If you’re going to be a performer, you will be kicked in the head more than you’re patted on the head. You have to do the work because it fulfills you.”
Phan remembered another teacher who told him, “Sweetie, without your confidence, you’re nothing.” Acknowledging that it does require confidence to walk on stage in front of 4,000 people, open his mouth, and sing, he admitted that maybe that’s the biggest change since winning the Grammy–a little boost of confidence.
