Marcus King is a graduate with a bachelor's degree in music education, cum laude, and a master's in vocal performance from the University of Memphis. In the summer of 2009, he premiered the John Baur opera Magdala at the Chautauqua Institute in Chautauqua, NY, in the role of St. Peter. During the summer of 2008, he attended the International Institute of the Vocal Arts program in Chiari, Italy, studying with Mrs. Mignon Dunn. His home voice teacher is Pamela Gaston of the University of Memphis. He is the 2010 first-place winner of the Memphis Beethoven Club Competition, district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions (2008 and 2009) and first-place winner of the N.A.T.S competition district level in Memphis, TN. He also participated in the AIMS program in Graz Austria, where he made it to the finals of the annual Aims Meistersinger Competition. In 2013 he made his European debut in Norfolk, England, as Demetrius in the Yorke Trust Summer Opera production of Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and in 2014 rejoined the company as Ubalde in Gluck’s Armide. In December of 2014, he traveled to Japan as a soloist in the New York-based professional touring group, D&P Joubert LLC/ The Glory Gospel Singers. He has been a young artist for the Utah Festival Opera as well as The Charlottesville Opera, formerly known as Ash Lawn Opera. For Charlottesville Opera, he played the role Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto. For Opera Memphis, he has had many solo roles, such as Mr. Gobineau in The Medium, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, Samuel in Pirates of Penzance, Joe Harland in Later the Same Evening, and the doctor in La Traviata. In the Spring of 2018, he played the role of Erminio in The Triumph of Honor for Opera Memphis’ Midtown Opera Festival. Soon after, he debuted at Opera on the Rock in Little Rock Arkansas, in a new work entitled Troubled Island.
