With “a voice of rare beauty” (Seen and Heard International, 2022), American countertenor Cody Bowers has received U.S.A. national award recognition from The Sullivan Foundation, The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, and The George London Foundation for Singers. In 2024 Cody debuts with The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s The Sacrifice of Isaac as well as the Metropolitan Opera in John Adams’ El Niño. He joins Ars Lyrica as Didymus in Handel’s Theodora, Opera Neo as Aci in the US premiere of Polifemo, and Bernstein’s Missa Brevis and Chichester Psalms with the Alabama Symphony. In 2023 Mr. Bowers made his Lincoln Center debut with the New York Philharmonic in Handel’s Israel in Egypt and the Houston Symphony in Handel’s Messiah. He also made a role and company debut as Ruggiero in Alcina with St. Petersburg Opera.
In previous seasons, he performed with the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera War Memorial Opera House, the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, San Diego Opera, Minnesota Opera, Utah Opera, The Atlanta Opera, Boston Early Music Festival, Opera Neo, Tanglewood Music Center, and Cantos Para Hermana al Mundo in Torreón, Mexico.
Cody Bowers continues to expand a broad and contrasting list of characters that range from Tolomeo, Handel’s Cesarian foil, the lost and mysterious Refugee from Jonathan Dove’s Flight, Federico García Lorca, the celebrated 20th-century poet and playwright in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar; Leonardo, the ghostly Greta Garbo impersonator in Gabriela Lena Frank’s opera El último sueño de Frida y Diego; the stubborn child in Ravel’s L’enfant et Les Sortilèges; and Orlando in Orlando.
In concert, Cody has performed numerous works by J. S. Bach including St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, Magnificat, Christmas Oratorio, and Mass in B minor. Other concert credits include Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, Ralph Vaughn William’s Mass in G Minor, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Mozart’s Mass in D Major.
He is an active member of internationally celebrated ensembles like Gramophone award-winning Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, The Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, The Thirteen, Bach Society Houston, VAE: Cincinnati, Washington Bach Consort, Ensemble Altera, and The Choir at the Church of the Advent.
