Jonathan Lemalu

Jonathan Fa'afetai Lemalu ONZM is a New Zealand bass baritone opera singer. Born to Samoan parents who had emigrated to New Zealand, he was educated in Dunedin. His first singing teacher was Honor McKellar, who began teaching him while he attended Otago Boys' High School. He studied both Law and Music at the University of Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws in 1999. Lemalu studied at the Royal College of Music, where he won the college's gold medal award in 2002. He won the prestigious London-based Kathleen Ferrier Award that same year. He was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2002 to 2004. He was the 2004 winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society's award for Young Artist of the Year. At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards Lemalu was a co-recipient of the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for his work on Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. He returned to New Zealand to perform in the 2012 New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington. He took the part of Te Kumete in the opera Hōhepa by Jenny McLeod which told the story of political prisoner Hōhepa Te Umuroa. In 2013 he was awarded the Senior Pacific Artist Award at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifka Awards. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonatha...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)