As a 17-year old growing up in Leroy, Saskatchewan, Spencer McKnight played hockey, volleyball, curled, ran track and took part in student government, unaware he had a voice that just a few years later would be described as one of the finest tenor voices in Canada.
In high school he pursued sports and politics and took part in trips to Ottawa including 'Forum for Young Canadians' and 'Encounters with Canada'. But it was a trip to a musical production that set his life on a different course.
"Two friends of mine and I went to see Phantom of the Opera," Spencer explained, "and on the way home one of the friends said to me, 'You're going to take singing lessons next year and then we're going to do a duet in the music festival.' So I started taking music lessons and enjoyed it. I seemed to have a knack for it and kind of fell in love with it."
It took a while for him to pursue it seriously. He enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan to study political science while also taking singing lessons. In his third year he wasn't finding as much joy in political science so he made the decision to focus on music for six months. During that time he won awards at the provincial music festival and represented Saskatchewan at the national festival where he won an award. "That's when I kind of realized it could actually be a possibility for a career," he said.
He studied privately with Lisa Hornung and then went to the University of Toronto where he studied, and continues to study, with Toronto based vocal pedagogue Mark Daboll.
Spencer, who now calls Outlook home, presented a program on June 7 entitled "A Night in Italy", a journey through Italian music in preparation for performances he has coming up in Italy next month.
After winning the Gordon Wallis Opera Competition in February, Spencer began thinking about how he wanted to use the prize money. "It's to be used for schooling or summer programs or something educational," he explained. "There's a lot of summer programs in Europe that are very expensive so I thought since I have this money I might as well try and do one of those once."
Spencer's voice teacher has been asked to teach in Italy this summer, so Spencer declared his interest in being part of that. He then auditioned for an opera and was given a lead in Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Mozart. Spencer has been preparing to play Don Ottavio, a role that is vocally challenging with difficult arias, one of which often gets cut from productions. But Spencer has more than demonstrated remarkable ability to tackle everything the role involves. He will have three weeks of rehearsals prior to the performances July 25-26. While in Italy Spencer will also take part in competitions and then return to Canada the middle of August.
In his concert at St. Andrew's United Church on Friday Spencer included two arias from Don Giovanni, art songs by Paolo Tosti and Italian opera pieces by Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini. Mark Turner, Executive Director of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, and Spencer's accompanist told the audience that the Rossini piece is so difficult very few tenors would ever be able to attempt it. Once again Spencer demonstrated exceptional talent in performing the challenging piece and thrilling the audience.
Spencer loves classical and opera music and wants to see its reach broaden and expand. "There's classical music around us all the time, whether it's in cartoons or movies or advertisements. We all have heard it but people don't necessarily go out and listen to it," he said. " But I think if people were to just go to any symphony concert or opera there's going to be something they'll enjoy about it."
Audiences can look for more opportunities to hear this accomplished tenor singing with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra in December performing Handel's Messiah and again in March for the North American premiere of Rebecca Dale's Materna Requiem.
