Garðar Thór Cortes, an Iceland-born tenor, has forged a notable career in which vocal prowess and striking appearance secured him principal opera roles throughout Europe and the United Kingdom while also yielding several popular classical crossover albums. Born in Reykjavik in 1974, he was immersed in music from childhood: his father, a well-known tenor, established multiple Icelandic musical institutions, among them the Icelandic Opera, and his British mother worked as a concert pianist.
In his early teens Cortes played a lead part in the Icelandic television series Nonni and Manni, yet only at age eighteen did he resolve to devote himself to music. He first trained at the Reykjavik School of Singing, which his father had founded, then received a scholarship to the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, before leaving to study privately in Denmark.
London performances in West Side Story and The Phantom of the Opera drew favorable attention, as did a 2002 Reykjavik concert shared with vocalist Katherine Jenkins that earned considerable critical praise. While sustaining opera engagements across Europe, Cortes issued his debut classical crossover album, Cortes, in Iceland in 2005; his second album, likewise titled Cortes, appeared in the U.K. in 2007.
