José Heredia is a Dominican operatic tenor based in New York. He sings the Italian repertoire and has spent a good part of his effort putting Dominican art song on a concert stage beside it.

The voice

The critic Nino Pantano, writing in Brooklyn Discovery about his Riccardo in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, put him alongside Carlo Bergonzi and Luciano Pavarotti in the role and singled out the squillo in the tone. Another notice described the voice as having a Pavarottian shimmer. It is a Golden-Age instrument by intent, not a modern lyric one.

The repertoire runs where that voice belongs: Tosca, Un Ballo in Maschera, La Traviata, I Pagliacci and the Siciliana from Cavalleria Rusticana. He performs recitals with the soprano Rachel Hippert, a programme of operatic duets, arias and musical theatre.

El Caminante de Nazaret

He sang Jesus of Nazareth in El Caminante de Nazaret, a Spanish-language opera by the Dominican composer Rafael Danilo Grullón, staged at the Teatro Nacional Eduardo Brito, and returned to the role in 2026. A Dominican composer writing an opera in Spanish, staged at home, with Dominican principals, is not a common event.

Canción Lírica Dominicana

The other half of the work is the Dominican art song. He has recorded and performed the repertoire — Sin Ti, by Julio Alberto Hernández, among it — and taken part in gala nights built around it, including a tribute to Eduardo Brito, the baritone who is the reference point for any Dominican singer working in this form.

The Opera Collective

He is on the board of The Opera Collective and serves as its chief technology officer, which puts him on the organising side of the art as well as the performing side.