One month until Chrismas! Have you bought your Barihunks calendar?

Malte Roesner (top), Gianluca Margheri (bottom left) and Eric Stokloßa/David Adam Moore (bottom right)

The 2016 Barihunks Charity Calendar is now available for purchase. Now in its fifth edition, the calendar features eighteen of the hottest singers in opera and musical theater hailing from nine different countries.

For each of the last four years, the charity calendar has donated all of the profits to young artists, young artist programs and projects featuring baritones. Some of the previous beneficiaries have included the Portland Resident Young Artist Program, Seagle Music Colony, the production of the West Coast Premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's Green Sneakers featuring Jesse Blumberg, and a concert featuring bass-barihunk Aaron Sørensen and hunkentenor Jonathan Blalock.

Trisatn Hambleton, Seth Carrico & Patrick Egersborg

This year the proceeds will be used to fund the creation of the Foundation for the Advancement of Baritones (F.A.B.), which will fund baritone and bass cash prizes at song competitions, commission music for baritones and basses, and be used to fund other projects featuring low male voices. New York-based composer Clint Borzoni has already been commissioned to write two songs for string quartet and baritone, which will be performed by Marco Vassalli in January.

The singers this year include Cyril Rovery and Romain Dayez from France; Malte Roesner, Eric Stokloßa and Marco Vassalli from Germany; Iurii Samoilov from the Ukraine; Tristan Hambleton from England; Duncan Rock from Australia; Patrick Egersborg from Norway; Jason Forbach, John Paul Huckle, David Adam Moore, Seth Mease Carico and Edward Miskie from the United States; Gianluca Margheri and Vittorio Prato from Italy; and, Iosu Yeregui from Spain. All of the singers are baritones or lower voices, except for Eric Stokloßa, who is the first tenor featured in the calendar (in a photo with baritone David Adam Moore from Peter Eötvös' Paradise reloaded.

Four of the singers were photographed this Summer in the Loire Valley in an official Barihunks photo shoot. 

The Barihunks calendar is available at LULU.com.

Marco Vassalli

Fans of Marco Vassalli can purchase his fundraising calendar, which will help fund his long-awaited US debut in San Francisco this January. Click HERE to purchase the calendar or HERE to learn more about the concert. You can also find additional benefits at his Indiegogo campaign, including his CD of Italian songs or the chance to have a newly commissioned song that he's performing named in your honor. 

Calendar model Patrick Egersborg as Zuniga in Norway

Patrick Egersborg in Carmen (left); Photo on right by Kjell-Ruben Strøm

Patrick Egersborg, who we've featured in this year's Barihunks Charity Calendar, was featured as Zuniga in Ringsaker Opera's production of Bizet's Carmen that opened last night in Brumunddal, Norway. The cast also includes Anna Otervik as Carmen, Hallvar Djupvik as Don José, Aleksander Nohr as Escamillo and Tanja Leine as Micaela.

There are seven more performance, which run through November 22. Tickets are available online.

Egersborg is featured in both March and November in our calendar, which you can order by clicking the LULU button below. This year's calendar will fund the creation of the Foundation for the Advancement of Baritones (F.A.B.), which will fund programs to benefit baritones and basses. FAB will commission new music, provide prize money for vocal competitions and financially support other endeavors promoting the baritone and bass voice. Composer Clint Borzoni is working on the first commission, which are two songs for baritone and string quartet based on poems by Hermann Hesse and Hilde Domin.

Tristan Hambleton, Seth Carico and Patric Egersborg

Patrick Egersborg to kick off Oslo Opera Festival

Patrick Egersborg

Patrick Egersborg, who appears twice in our new Barihunks Calendar, will be kicking off the Oslo Opera Festival 10 year anniversary celebration on October 10th. He'll be joined by soprano Gjøril Songvoll and accompanist Berit Billingsø in the newly renovated Østbanehallen.

Egersborg will sing Don Giovanni's Catalog Aria, Bess, You Is My Woman Now from Porgy & Bess and join Gjøril Songvoll for Là ci darem la mano from Don Giovanni. There will also be music by Alf Prøysen, Francesco Cilea and Giuseppe Verdi.

Tickets are available online. 

Patrick Egersborg is featured in both March and November in our new Barihunk Calendar!

Order today by clicking below.

Reader Submission: Patrick Egersborg

Patrick Egersborg (on right in Handel's Orlando)

We've had a sudden uptick in Reader Submissions from Scandinavia while we've been covering the Queen Sonja Vocal Competition in Oslo (which wraps up on August 21st). The latest is Norwegian bass-barihunk Patrick Egersborg, who graduated with a masters degree from the National Opera Academy in Oslo. He has also studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler" in Berlin and in London on a scholarship. He is also was awarded a scholarship from Opera Grange Park to further his studies.

While at the Opera Academy, he sang in the full production of Cavalli's L’Ormindo, as well as excerpts from numerous operas. Last year he performed Don Alfonso' in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and in 2013 he sang The Operator in the world premiere of Mæland's Ad Undas at The Norwegian National Opera.

In 2010,  Egersborg sang the role of Spurio and The Executioner at the Grimeborn Festival in the first complete showcase of Jools Scott's jazz-opera Vice, which also played at the Soho Theatre. In 2012, he sang the role of Zoroastro in the Norwegian premiere of the Handel's Orlando at Åmot Operagard. In 2013, he sang Dottore Spinnelloccio/Notaro and Talpa in Puccini's Il Trittico at a Master Class at the Norwegian National Opera under the baton of Magnus Loddgard and last  year he appeared as Sam in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti at the Oslo Opera Festival.

He also sings regularly for the Oslo Opera Festival and has appeared in concert at Universitetets aula, the Romerike Symphony Orchestra and at the summer concerts on the balcony at the Norwegian National Opera. You can hear him singing Mozart's Se vuol ballare from Le nozze di Figaro HERE.

Upcoming performances include an appearance with OperaSalong in Ringsakeroperaen in September and Zuniga in Bizet's Carmen in November at the Ringsakeroperaen. He will also be appearing in our 2016 Barihunks Charity Calendar, which is due out on October 1st.