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Biography

Martin Luther Clark is praised by the Chicago Tribune for for bringing “an extra frisson of vocal and dramatic vitality to everything [he] sang.” In the 2023-24 season, he sings his first performances of the title role of Candide  with Madison Opera as well as returns to the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Luis Griffith in Champion  and joins Dallas Opera as the Orderly in the world premiere of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He also sings Handel’s Messiah  with the Florida Orchestra and South Dakota Symphony and Bruckner’s Te Deum  with the Apollo Chorus and Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. In the summer he joins Wolf Trap Opera as the Brother in Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins  and Jonathan Dale in Silent Night. His future engagements include debuts with Houston Grand Opera and Portland Opera. 

Last season he created the role of CJ in the world premiere of Will Liverman and DJ King Rico’s highly-anticipated new opera, The Factotum. He also sang Tenor 3 in Davis’  X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X  with Detroit Opera and Opera Omaha as well as Rapunzel’s Prince in  Into the Woods  with Tulsa Opera. In the summer, he returned to the Aldeburgh Music Festival to sing Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac and Canticle V: The Death of Narcissus in addition to William Croft’s A Hymn of Divine Musick, realized by Britten. He also sang Master Slender in Sir John in Love as well as two concerts at the Bard Music Festival.

Previously at the Lyric Opera of Chicago at which he was a member of the Ryan Opera Center, he sang the First Armed Man in Die Zauberflöte and Adult William and the Chicken Plucker in Blanchard’s Fire Shut up in my Bones in addition to covering Malcolm in Macbeth. During COVID’s hold on the industry, he also sang on a number of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s digital programs, including Larry Brownlee and Friends , The Next Chapter: Creating the Factotum , Sole e amore —upon which he sang songs of Mascagni and Puccini, Magical Musical Around the World, and the company’s annual Rising Stars in Concert in which he sang excerpts of L’amico Fritz.

He joined Washington National Opera as Man 2 on the recording of Tesori’s Blue. He sang Borsa—whilst covering Duca—in Rigoletto and the Peasant Leader—whilst covering Lensky—in Eugene Onegin as a Resident Artist at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. 

While a student at the Curtis Institute of Music, he sang Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and, with Russian Opera Workshop, he sang Count Vaudemont in Iolanta and King Charles VII in Pikyovaya Dama. On the concert stage, he joined the Kansas City Symphony as soloist in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy as well as sang Handel’s Messiah at Opera North and Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Highland Park Chorale.

Mr. Clark is a previous young artist of the Britten Pears Young Artist Program, Georg Solti Accademia and Central City Opera as well as a Resident Artist at Opera North and Studio Artist at Wolf Trap Opera. In addition, he sang numerous outreach performances or Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore with Dallas Opera while obtaining his Bachelor of Music at the University of North Texas, at which his performances included Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette, the Chevalier in Dialogues des Carmélites, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, and Mack the Knife in The Threepenny Opera. He holds a Master of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music. He is a Richard F. Gold Career Grant recipient from the Shoshana Arts Foundation.