David Flight
Praised by Opera News for his "flawless dicton and flexible lyric baritone," St. John's native David Kelleher-Flight was recently named Memorial University’s 2017 Horizon Award for Outstanding Achievements by a Memorial graduate under the age of 35 years. David made his New York City Opera debut as the Marquis de Tarapote in Christopher Alden's production of LA PERICHOLE at New York's City Center. David made his Carnegie Hall debut as Monterone in RIGOLETTO under the baton of Maestro Stephen Crawford. One critic hailed, “The real stand-out of the evening was David Kelleher-Flight. Making his Carnegie Hall debut, he showed the most polish and vocal refinement of the evening. His rich baritone voice set him apart from the others”(Greenwich Post). David has performed at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theatre, Carnegie Hall, New York's City Center, Symphony Space, Radio City Music Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House, the French Consulate, the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, and has performed with New York City Opera, Bard Summerscape, the Center for Contemporary Opera, DiCapo Opera Theatre, Bronx Opera, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Aspen Opera Theatre, the Charlottesville Opera, the Silicon Valley Music Festival, the Natchez Opera Festival, and the Ohio Light Opera with whom he has appeared in over 200 performances.
David received his early vocal training at the Tanglewood Institute, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook where his research interests included the development of the Nineteenth-Century Song Cycle. He has participated in the Weill Music Institute’s Professional Training Workshop at Carnegie Hall and has twice been one of nine singers accepted into the Lieder Master Course for Advanced Singer-Pianist Duos at the Oxford Lieder Festival at Oxford University (UK). David has had the pleasure of working with some of the most legendary pianists of his generation including Dalton Baldwin, Julius Drake, Margo Garrett, Warren Jones, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Malcolm Martineau and Roger Vignoles. David can be heard on commercially released recordings of ORANGE BLOSSOMS, THE FORTUNE TELLER, EL CAPITAN, THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, and THE MIKADO for Albany Records and available on iTunes and Spotify.
David is on the voice faculty at the State University of New York at Suffolk County and maintains a private voice studio in Manhattan. David is the President of the Light Opera of New York. www.lightoperaofnewyork.org