Versatile tenor Jon Lee Keenan is a native of Las Vegas, Nevada. Influenced by his father, a classical musician and jazz saxophonist, Jon cultivated an early interest in performing a variety of musical styles. After studying classical voice and jazz bass at UNLV, Jon relocated to Southern California to pursue a career in classical singing, and to further study vocal arts at the USC Thornton School of Music.
In 2007, Jon was selected to join the LA Master Chorale and has been featured as a soloist at Walt Disney Concert Hall in each season since. Recent highlights with LAMC include the role of "Evangelist" in Bach's St. Matthew Passion, tenor soloist in Handel's Messiah and Bach's Magnificat.
As an in-demand performer of new music, Jon has helped create several new exciting characters through collaborations with experimental opera producers at The Industry LA, including "Clyde Barrow" in Bonnie and Clyde (Andrew McIntosh), "Little Monk" in Brecht's Galileo (Andy Akiho), and "Gunner" in War of the Worlds (Anne Gosfeld). Jon recently recorded the role "Gniphos" in the LA Philharmonic's production of Lou Harrison's Young Caesar, released internationally in 2018 on The Industry Records.
This season's highlights include appearances with the Corona Del Mar Baroque Festival in Bach's Magnificat; Various characters in John Cage's Europeras I and II with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and an international tour of Lagrime di San Pietro with music by Orlando di Lasso and staging by Peter Sellars. When not singing, Jon can be found playing Jazz Bass with "Citizen Kitten".
