A native of Ottawa, Tenor, Tonatiuh Abrego is a graduate of the Calgary Opera Emerging Artist ²⁰¹³⁄₂₀₁₄ program. He was last seen performing the leading role of Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia as well as The Witch in Hansel and Gretel, both with Calgary Opera. In Opera Nuova’s production of L’Elisir d’amore, he played the leading role of Nemorino. Other past credits include Count Almaviva in Capital City Operas production of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Ottavio and Mr. Craven in The Banff Centre’s Opera productions of Don Giovanni and The Secret Garden and Scaramuccio and Tanzmeister in Opera Nuova’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos. He was seen in many of Opera McGill’s productions, including Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (directed by Tom Diamond) singing the Prologue and sang the roles of Edgardo from Lucia de Lamermoor, The Duke of Mantua from Rigoletto, Nadir from Les Pêcheurs des Perles, Ferrando from Cosi fan tutte and Tamino from Die Zauberflöte in various Opera scenes performances. He recently finished his Master’s degree in Voice Performance at the Schulich School of Music in Montreal after having also completed his Bachelors of Music under the guidance of Professor Stefano Algieri.

Tonatiuh was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Lotte Lenya Competition and the recipient of the Elizabeth Wirth Opera Scholarship at McGill. Tonatiuh is the winner of the St-Georges Provincial Music Festival in the Maestoso Category, a finalist in the Ottawa Orchestra Concerto competition and a winner of the Ontario Provincial Music festival for Classical Voice.

With an extensive list of concert experience, Tonatiuh has performed as a guest Tenor soloist with the Calgary Festival Chorus directed by Mel Kirby, the Kanata Choral Society, directed by Gloria Jean-Nagy, and the Ottawa Welsh choir in various pieces including: Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Ariel Ramirez’ Misa Criolla, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and Camille Saint-Saens’ Oratorio de Noel (2008).

Tonatiuh has had the immense honour of performing with Latin American artists such as Santiago Suarez (of the Quinteto Tiempo group from Argentina), Tido Medina and Luis Abanto (of the Colores Andinos group from Ottawa).