Hailing from Norfolk, Virginia (USA), Grammy Award-winning tenor Freddie Ballentine was the 2021 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award, and is an alumnus of both the Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera and the Los Angeles Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Programme.

Freddie Ballentine’s 2025/26 season included his Bayerische Staatsoper debut in Salome, which also recorded with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería. He returned to the Metropolitan Opera and made his Rurhtriennale debut. He continues his collaboration with pianist Kunal Lahiry, presenting their programme Our People:A Celebration of Black and LGBTQ Voices Through Song and Vogue at New York City’s 92nd St Y. The pair has recently performed Our People at St. George’s Bristol, Konzerthaus Berlin, Theatre de l’Athenee in Paris and The Kennedy Center.

Admired for his versatility and individuality, Freddie Ballentine has appeared at the opera houses in Los Angeles, Austin, Utah, Seattle, Cincinnati, and Detroit. He created the role of Trainer in the highly-anticipated world premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded at Washington National Opera. Two notable engagements at The Metropolitan Opera included Remendado in Carrie Cracknell’s new production of Bizet’s Carmen, and Tybalt in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, conducted by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. International operatic engagements brought him to Opera Vlaanderen, Staatstheater Kassel, the English National Opera, as well as the Dutch National Opera

In concert, Mr. Ballentine has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Arvo Pärt’s Miserere, the New Jersey Symphony for Handel’s Messiah, and as a featured soloist with the New York Choral Society.

Freddie Ballentine trained with the Wolf Trap Opera, Aspen Music Opera Center and The Opera Theatre of St. Louis, who awarded him the Thelma Steward Endowed Artist Alumni Award.