Ames, Iowa – International opera star and Centerville native Simon Estes retired from the stage in 2022, but he’s still working as an artist in residence at Iowa State University. Estes will turn 87 in March and he’s spending about three weeks a semester on the Ames campus, teaching private lessons with voice majors in the building that bears his name. The Simon Estes Music Hall was dedicated in 2020 and ISU President Wendy Wintersteen helped with the unveiling.
At the building’s opening, Estes said it was an incredible tribute to his near-six-decades-long career.
The son of a coal miner and the grandson of a slave, Estes says his philanthropic work is just as important in his life as music. He’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to students in need, and built a music school in South Africa. Upon announcing his retirement at age 84, he told Iowa Public Radio most opera singers retire at 50 or 60.
Opera requires substantial strength in the singer’s core to control breathing and project the voice. Estes says there are some key reasons he was able to continue performing into his 80s.
Estes played the lead in Porgy and Bess at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1985.
Estes is a graduate of the University of Iowa and the Juilliard School of Music. He has performed more than 100 roles with 84 major opera companies around the globe.
(Iowa State University image from 2020)
