Brad Baron and some of his selfies from social media
We finally got some video from barihunk Brad Baron's graduation recital at the Louisiana State University School of Music's Recital Hall on April 22, 2016. Baron graduated from Princeton University with an AB in English and
Certificates in Theatre and Vocal Performance recently received his Masters of Music at Louisiana State University.
Brad Baron sings Finzi's "Let Us Garlands Bring":
Brad Baron sings Schubert's "Erlkönig":
Brad Baron sings Poulenc's "Hôtel":
The multi-talented singer, also works as an actor, writer, playwright, blogger (Life of a Gay Pirate), gamer commentator, librettist and now director.
His play Last Ditch Playlist, which he's been developing for three years will be presented in a fully staged production at the Dixon Place MainStage in New York City on August 18th at 7:30 pm. He'll be directing the piece, as well. According to the theater website, "Last Ditch Playlist is an ode to the memory of a unraveling gay romance. Aaron and Wes’ joy and pain are evoked with sweeping sincerity in this new stage work, peeling away layers of the relationship as it is replayed ‘on shuffle’ in gripping scenes of intimacy, recollections, phone calls, internet chats, and lyricism."
The men of Brad Baron's play Last Ditch Playlist
In recent years he has contributed works to the New Jersey One Minute Play Festival, the Rainbow Festival with the La Strada Ensemble Theater, Luna Stage’s Annual Short Play Festival, the New Playwrights Series at The Villagers Theater, and the Gay Play Series with the Ringwald Theatre, where his work Homochondria was presented. He is currently working on a short comic libretto for Coffee Companion with composer Marc Hoffeditz and collaborators Esha Datta and Jennifer Peterson.
As a singer, he was an Encouragement Award winner in the Violetta DuPont Competition,
a finalist in Classical Idol 8, a semi-finalist in the Lyndon Woodside
Oratorio Solo Competition, and a semi-finalist in the Mildred Miller
International Voice Competition. He has performed at the Des Moines Metro Opera, Bronx Opera Company and Ohio Light Opera. He will be joining Opera Memphis this Fall as an Artist in Residence, where he will be performing Antonio in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and The Pirate King in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance during their 2016-2017 season.
We first got to know Brad Baron through Twitter and his entertaining tweets @BaronAsInRed.
One of our favorite summer opera festival's recently kicked off, as the Des Moines Metro Opera kicked off their 44th season with a number of barihunks in the cast. Last season, we even featured a barihunk group photo from their production of Puccini's La fanciulla del West, which made our 2015 Best of Barihunks feature in addition to Brad Baron, who was an apprentice artist with the company and our Best Twitter discovery of the year (@BaronAsInRed).
This summer, the company is featuring full-scale operas along with a black box production. The full-scale productions are Verdi’s Falstaff, Massenet’s Manon and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, which will be running until July 17th at the Blank
Performing Arts Center in Indianola Iowa. The black box opera will be Philip Glass’ Galileo Galileo, which will be performed on July 7 and 10 at the Science Center of Iowa in Des
Moines.
Edward Parks sings Ford's aria from Verdi's Falstaff:
We can always rely on the company featuring some of the most talented barihunks on the scene and this season is no exception, as Verdi’s Falstaff will feature Wayne Tigges in the title role and Edward Parks, a recent Operalia finalist, in his debut as Ford. The gifted soprano Kelly Kaduce will sing the role of Alice Ford. Massenet’s Manon will feature the rising young talent Michael Adams making his debut as Lescaut and Troy Cook taking on de Brétigny. While none of three main characters in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice are baritones, the cast includes the hot young bass Brent Michael Smith as one of the Furies. The rest of the cast includes Jennifer Johnson Cano in the title role, soprano Susannah Biller as Eurydice and Honorary Barihunk Cree Carrico as Amor. Philip Glass’ Galileo Galilei will feature Troy Cook as the Younger Galileo.
DMMO young artists Nate Mattingly, Brent Michael Smith & Charles Eaton
There are a number of baritones and basses in the Des Moines Opera Appretice Artist Program this season, including Tyler Alessi, Joshua Conyers, Charles Eaton, Reuben Lillie, Brent Michael Smith, Spencer Reichman, Nate Mattingly, Connor McDonald, Ben Schaeffer and Reuben Walker. The young artists will be performing scenes on July 8, 13 and 16.
We are thrilled that Brent Michael Smith will appear in our 10th Anniversary "Barihunks in Bed" calendar. He can next be seen back at the Michigan Opera Theater, where he is a young artist. From October 15-23 he'll be singing Zuniga alongside the Morales of fellow barihunk Harry Greenleaf in Bizet's Carmen. From November 12-20, he appears as the British Major in Kevin Puts' Silent Night alongside fellow barihunk Gabriel Preisser's Lt. Gordon and tenor Chad Johnson's Nikolaus Sprink. Tickets for all performances can be found online.
We plan on featuring some of the DMMO young artists and we'll start with Charles H. Eaton, who recently received his Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota. In his second year of studies, he was a participant of the ECCO Program, which facilitates hours of coaching and exchange between promising young artists in the School of Music and the music staff at Minnesota Opera. Charles will cover Lescaut in Des Moines Metro Opera's production of Manon and participate in the chorus of Falstaff as an apprentice artist. He is a Rocky Mountain District winner of the 2016 Metropolitan Council Auditions.
We've gotten know bass-baritone Brad Baron through Twitter and love following his tweets @BaronAsInRed. We've been meaning to post him many times over the last two years. In fact, he's been recommended to us by a few of his colleagues, particularly while working at the Des Moines Metro Opera. When we say his latest selfie...we knew it was time!
He has peformed Sir Anthony Absolute in the New York premiere of Kirke Mechem’s The Rivals with the Bronx Opera Company, Harapha in Handel’s Samson and premiered The Soldier in the first orchestra performance of Theo Popov’s Once Upon the Wind with The Secret Opera. At the aforementioned Des Moines Metro Opera he sang the role of an Old Gypsy in Bizet's Carmen and one of Flora's attendants in Verdi's La traviata at their 2014 Festival. He sang in the first public performance of Clint Borzoni’s opera Antinous and Hadrian as the High Priest with operamission.
He was an Encouragement Award winner in the Violetta DuPont Competition,
a finalist in Classical Idol 8, a semi-finalist in the Lyndon Woodside
Oratorio Solo Competition, and a semi-finalist in the Mildred Miller
International Voice Competition. He will be a resident artist at the Ohio Light Opera this summer.
In addition to his work as a he singer, he's an actor and writer. His play 140 Characters or Less had its first reading as a part of the Annual Short Play Festival at Luna Stages. Brad is the author of five full-length plays and many more one acts. His
full-length play Where We Always Go received its first staged reading
as a part of the New Playwrights Series with The Villagers Theater in
Somerset, New Jersey, and his play Homochondria had its regional premiere as a
part of the Ringwald Theatre’s Gay Play Series in Michigan.
In addition to writing plays, Baron is a published contributing writer for a number of online blogs. He periodically writes for the site GayGamer.net and also cultivates his own personal blog.
Baron graduated from Princeton University with an AB in English and Certificates in Theatre and Vocal Performance. He is currently in pursuit of his Masters of Music at Louisiana State University.
