American baritone Edward Nelson is an alumnus of both the Merola Opera Program and the Adler Fellowship at the San Francisco Opera. He was winner of the 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup and named among OperaWire's Top Ten Rising Stars of 2025. A native of California, Nelson is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and received further training at the Tanglewood Music Center.

In the 2026/27 season, Nelson makes his house debut for Atlanta Opera as Ponchel in Kevin Puts's Silent Night directed by Tomer Zvulun and conducted by Iván López Reynoso. He also returns to Houston Grand Opera in the role of Gaylord Ravenal in Kern & Hammerstein II's Show Boat directed by Francesca Zabello and conducted by Patrick Summers. He sings the title role in Philip Glass's Orphée for Des Moines Metropolitan Opera in a new production directed by Kristine McIntyre and conducted by Christopher Allen. On the concert platform, Nelson performs in the world premiere of Francis, an oratorio by Richard Denielpour inspired by the life of St Francis of Assisi, with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. European appearances include performances of Orff's Carmina Burana at Edinburgh's Usher Hall and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by James MacMillan. In recital, he appears at Laguna Beach's Pacific Vocal Series.

Last season, Nelson made a memorable return to the Metropolitan Opera as Tracy Bacon in the Met premiere of Mason Bates's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as well as making several notable company debuts: at Houston Grand Opera in his role debut as Ponchel Silent Night; at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in the title role of the world premiere of Benoît Mernier's Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street directed by Vincent Boussard; at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden as Dandini in a semi-staged concert performance of Rossini's La Cenerentola conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock; and at Teatro Colón A Coruña as Pelléas in a concert performance of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia conducted by José Miguel Pérez Sierra.

Other important company debuts of recent seasons include Teatro Regio Torino as Marquis d'Hérigny in a new production of Auber's Manon Lescaut; for Dallas Opera as Pelleas; for Boston Lyric Opera as Billy Bigelow in Anne Bogart's new production of Carousel; for Opera Theatre of St. Louis as Eisentstein in Strauss's Die Fledermaus; for Teatro Real Madrid in the title role Orphée; and for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Semperoper Dresden as Dandini in Damiano Michieletto's production of Rossini's La Cenerentola. Nelson made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Terence Blanchard's Champion, which won the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. He made his European debut in 2017 at the Norwegian National Opera in the title role of a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande and later returned to the company as both Dandini and Figaro in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He has since performed Pelléas at Ópera de Oviedo, Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, and Des Moines Metro Opera.

Other notable opera engagements include his return to Seville's Teatro de la Maestranza as Oreste in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, to Washington National Opera as both Don Andrès in Offenbach's La Périchole and Maximillian in Bernstein's Candide, the Barber in Strauss's Die schweigsame Frau for Bard Summerscape, his debut for Opera Philadelphia in Ne Quittez Pas: A Reimagined 'La voix humaine', where he performed songs of Francis Poulenc alongside Patricia Racette, Il Barbierie di Siviglia at the Vancouver Opera, title role in Don Giovanni for Palm Beach Opera, the Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro for Detroit Opera, title role in Thomas's Hamlet for West Edge Opera, Schaunard in Puccini's La bohème for Cincinnati Opera, and a staged performance of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin at Chicago's Harris Theater, in collaboration with Jessica Lang Dance.

On the concert platform, Nelson made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony and Kurt Weill's Four Walt Whitman Songs. He has also sung Sea Symphony with the Milwaukee Symphony and performed Orff's Carmina Burana with both the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Mobile Symphony. He has given a recital of Schubert lieder at the Four Arts Society in Palm Beach, and sung both Schaunard in La bohème and Papageno in The Magic Flute with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra at Boston's Symphony Hall.