A leading proponent of contemporary opera and one of the most distinctive American tenors of his generation, Joshua Stewart enjoys an international career defined by vocal warmth, dramatic conviction, and a rare fluency across standard repertoire, rarely heard works, and new music.

Recent highlights include Stewart’s title-role debut in Mozart’s Idomeneo at La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, in a new production directed by Calixto Bieito and conducted by Enrico Onofri. Reviewing the production, the Danish arts and culture publication Detskuduse wrote, “Joshua Stewart impresses with vocal power and stage presence as a king who is both noble and broken, and gradually sliding into madness.” He also appeared at La Monnaie and in Santa Cruz with pianist and composer Courtney Bryan in Man Without a Home, a recital program exploring New Orleans, Europe, the African diaspora, memory, displacement, and belonging.

Stewart’s contemporary opera credits include Street and Elijah Muhammad in Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at Seattle Opera; Pelegrin in Michael Tippett’s New Year with Birmingham Opera Company, in a production by Keith Warner conducted by Alpesh Chauhan OBE; Lazarus in the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s Wake with Birmingham Opera Company, directed by Graham Vick; Jonah in Kris Defoort’s The Time of Our Singing; and the title role in Daniel Schnyder and Bridgette A. Wimberly’s Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, which he has performed with Seattle Opera, Madison Opera, Atlanta Opera, and Arizona Opera. Of his performance as Elijah Muhammad, Erica Miner wrote in Broadway World, “Joshua Stewart stood out from the very first for his impressive clarion vocality. The voice sounded glorious in all registers, and especially in the top range, where the tessitura was challenging.” He has also appeared as The Son in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s Blue at Seattle Opera, and in Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s Sanctuary Road.

His repertoire also includes important bel canto and Rossini credits, including Antenore in Rossini’s Zelmira and Giove in Rossini’s Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo at Rossini in Wildbad, both of which are available as commercial recordings. Upcoming engagements include Pollione in Bellini’s Norma with Madison Opera and Faust in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust with Marigny Opera Ballet.

On the concert platform, Stewart’s recent and current engagements include Britten’s War Requiem at the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo and the Rostropovich Festival; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; Verdi’s Requiem; Mozart’s Requiem; and Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, which he recorded with Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for Chandos. His discography includes multiple commercial recordings and reflects a career that spans bel canto, large-scale symphonic repertoire, twentieth-century masterworks, and contemporary vocal music. He has appeared with orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Santa Cruz Symphony.

Stewart made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut as the Narrator in Peter Sellars’s staging of Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and appeared as The Shepherd in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex under Esa-Pekka Salonen in a Sellars production seen at the Baltic Sea Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Royal Festival Hall. Other collaborators include Kent Nagano, Dan Ettinger, Maurizio Benini, Kazuki Yamada, Mark Wigglesworth, Alpesh Chauhan OBE, Graham Vick, Richard Jones, Christoph Loy, Keith Warner, and Calixto Bieito.

A native of New Orleans, Stewart began his musical life in a city where classical music, jazz, spirituals, and vernacular traditions exist in constant conversation. He trained at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, whose alumni include Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Jon Batiste, and Trombone Shorty, before continuing his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Bavarian State Opera Studio. At twelve, he released the jazz recording Jazz Prodigy, produced by Milton Batiste.

He has also performed for world leaders including King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden and U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Equally at home in the opera house, concert hall, and recital hall, Joshua Stewart continues to shape a career that places him among the artists expanding the future of the art form.