Aaron Sørensen in 2 world premieres; Reprising Osmin in Baltimore

Aaron Sørensen's barihunk photo shoot

Bass-barihunk Aaron Sørensen has had an interesting beginning to the new year, performing two world premieres and his second Osmin.

He just released a song cycle by four-time Emmy Award-winning composer Glen Roven that was written with his voice in mind. The original song cycle is based on wine tasting notes from Obsidian Ridge Winery in Sonoma, California that were penned by winemaker Alex Beloz. The text screams for music with phraes like "dancing on the palate" and "a full crescendo of stony tannins." Only Sørensen's rich, deep base could do justice words like "dark hibiscus" which almost demands to be written for the lowest reaches of the human voice.

The song cycle will be premiered at the winery on June 20th and we'll have more details in a future post. There was also a video of the songs taped at Henry's Restaurant in New York City, which you can watch below. The video was directed by the gifted opera director John De Los Santos.

The former Barihunks calendar model also just sang in the world premiere of  Gregory Vajda’s comic opera Georgia Bottoms with fellow barihunk Mike Nyby and the Huntsville Symphony. The opera about the modern South, is based on the national best-seller by Alabama author Mark Childress.

On March 7th he'll sing his second performance of Osmin in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail with the Peabody Opera Theatre in Baltimore. Osmin was Sørensen's dream role and he just debuted it with the Houston Symphony last month. The Peabody performance will be directed by Garnett Bruce, who directed their successful Rake's Progress in 2011.

The opera will be performed at the Modell Performing Arts Center in Baltimore and tickets are available online.