Fernando Varela

Equally comfortable belting out traditional opera standards or rousing, choral pop anthems, tenor singer Fernando Varela first came to fame as a contestant on 'America's Got Talent' before going on to establish himself as a young, crossover star of classical and pop music. Born in Puerto Rico but raised in Florida, Varela grew up performing Michael Jackson songs for his friends and only discovered classical music at 17 when he joined the Central Floia Lyric Opera and learned under the tutelage of veteran director and performer Licia Albanese. He went on to cut his teeth at the Palm Beach Opera and was discovered by Grammy winning producer David Foster, who mentored him and helped him release early albums 'Defining the Moment' and 'Dare to Live'. In 2013 he recruited other up-and-coming opera singers Josh Page and Hana Ryu to form Forte, and a few weeks after meeting online they gave their first live performance as an audition on the television talent show 'America's Got Talent'. Mime artist Kenichi Ebina won the competition, but the vocal trio ended up an impressive fourth in the competition and went on to reach number three on the Billboard Classical Charts with their self-titled debut album. Varela embarked on solo tours across the world and performed with Lionel Richie, Jackie Evancho and Katherine Jenkins before signing to Deutsch Gramophone Records for his 2017 album 'Vivere'.

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