Bio
American tenor Patrick Parker is based in Oslo, Norway, where he serves as cantor at Bryn Church and regularly performs with leading soloists from the Oslo Opera and Oslo Symphony.
Patrick’s symphonic repertoire includes Dvořák’s Biblical Songs, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, and Strauss’ orchestrated lieder, and his 2025-26 season includes concert excerpts from Bizet’s Carmen and
Les pêcheurs de perles, Humperdink’s Hänsel und Gretel, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, Lehár’s Das Land des Lächelns, Massanet’s Manon, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Puccini’s La Bohème, Wagner’s Die Walküre and Parsifal, and the Great American Songbook.
While completing his doctoral studies at the University of Houston, he founded Houston Baroque, performing and recording German, French, and Italian repertoire, and has sung oratorio repertoire of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Mendelssohn.
Patrick’s primary mentors include the renowned Messiaen interpreter Jon Gillock and distinguished pedagogue Nancy Walker, who have helped him retain the joy and wonder of music he first experienced as a child, and who help him remember and be a conduit for the incredible power music has to comfort, heal, and sustain.
In 2026, Patrick and pianist Bina Karpisova present The Wanderer’s Journey, a four-part journey through the greatest song cycles in German music. The saga showcases the stark isolation of Schubert’s Winterreise,
the passionate quest of Brahms’s Die schöne Magelone, the tender nostalgia of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, and the luminous farewell of Schubert’s Schwanengesang.
Previously a choirmaster and organist in the Anglican cathedral tradition, Patrick was a prize-winning organist who performed the complete works of Reincken, Telemann, Bach, Mendelssohn, and Schumann in many of the world’s great churches and cathedrals as well as soloist with orchestras and appearances at major music festivals.
Beyond music, Patrick holds a master’s degree in social work, having studied Jungian and Freudian principles that shaped generations of opera.
