Hailing from Norfolk, Virginia, 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 Program.

Admired for his versatility and individuality, Freddie continues a 2024–25 season that includes debuts with the New World Symphony (Harlekin in Der Kaiser von Atlantis, with Stéphane Denève conducting), Austin Opera (Ben Marco in The Manchurian Candidate), Utah Opera (The Witch in Hänsel und Gretel), and Detroit Opera (Kevin Richardson in The Central Park Five). He returns to Dutch National Opera for the world premiere of We Are The Lucky Ones, gives recitals with pianist Kunal Lahiry for Konzerthaus Berlin and Seattle Opera, appears in concert with Pacific Vocal Series, and bows with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin as Melot in Tristan und Isolde.

Freddie began the 2023–24 season in a return to Seattle Opera, singing Loge in his first German-language performances of Das Rheingold. He then 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 followed: 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. Elsewhere during the season, he appeared at Paris’s Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet for a recital with Kunal Lahiry, and joined the Rotterdam Philharmonic for a theatrical concert, Different from Others, with conductor Manoj Kamps.