American tenor Calvin Lee is from Miami, Florida and studied at the North Carolina School of Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the Conservatorio di Trento in Italy, followed by studies at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. After graduating, Calvin Lee made his professional debut in 1996 with the Houston Grand Opera's International Tour of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. This took him to well-known opera houses such as the Teatro alla Scala, the Opera National in Paris, Tokyo's Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Navago's Aichi Prefectural Art Theater and the International Festival in Osaka, Japan.

In 2022 Calvin sang the role of Froh in Das Rheingold at the Freemasons' Hall in London's Covent Garden for Regents Opera and will return for two full cycles in November 2024.

He will also sing the role of Aegisthus as part of the Regents Opera orchestra workshop in July this year.

In the Fall of 2020, Mr. Lee sang the role of Robbins in a new production of Porgy and Bess at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria.

In January 2020, Calvin Lee sang the role of Professor in Joseph Haas' The Wedding of the Job at the Winterstein Theater in Annaberg-Buchholz.

Mr. Lee made his debut at the English National Opera (London) and the Dutch National Opera (Amsterdam) in a co-production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in the 2018/2019 season. In the same season he appeared at the Dutch National Opera in John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West.

House debuts in 2016 included the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Semperoper (Dresden), as well as the Hamburg State Opera and the Alte Oper Frankfurt am Main with Porgy and Bess.

In 2016 Calvin sang the Italian singer in Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier with the Theater Werk Munich.

Calvin Lee made his debut at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen in 2014 in a new production of Porgy and Bess in the role of Mingo. He also sang in Show Boat at the Bad Hersfeld Festival.

At the Tanglewood Music Festival he sang the roles of Mingo, Crabman and Nelson in Porgy and Bess with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He opened the 2012 season at Boston Symphony Hall with Porgy and Bess conducted by Maestro Bram Tovey.

Calvin Lee offered a vocal highlight at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in collaboration with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, with the record company Decca, he recorded the role of Peter in Porgy and Bess with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro John Mauceri.

Further engagements took Mr. Lee to the San Francisco Opera, the Opera Comique, the Grand Théâtre de la Ville Luxembourg, the Theater de Caen, the Teatro Real, the Granada Festival Internacional de Musica and Dance, as well as the Atlanta Opera, the Tulsa Opera, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Connecticut Opera, Opera Memphis, Opera Colorado and Opera Naples in Florida U.S.A.

His repertoire also includes roles such as Pang and Pong/Turandot, Ruiz/Il Trovatore, Normanno/Lucia di Lammermoor, Monostatos and First Man in Armor/The Magic Flute, Narraboth, First and Third Jew/Salome, Helmsman/The Flying Dutchman, Messenger/Aida , and Andrès, Cochenille, Pitichinaccio, Frantz/Tales of Hoffman.

Mr. Lee can also be heard in concert repertoire. This includes oratorios such as the Mozart Requiem, Haydn's Creation, Mendelssohn's Elias, Handel's Messiah, Stravinsky's Pulcinella and the Verdi Requiem.

In 2014, the San Francisco Opera released a DVD and Blu Ray (Euro Arts) of Mr. Lee's performance as Peter in Francesca Zambello's revised production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Mr. Lee is the founder of the New World Vocal Ensemble.