MICHAEL
ALEXANDER
AOUN

Michael Alexander Aoun (they/he) is a Lebanese-American bass-baritone whose passion for interdisciplinary and collaborative art inspires their professional work. An all-or-nothing person, Michael views music as a means of exploring one’s whole self and creating something entirely unique. They feel strongly about their art reflecting their values of authenticity and human connection.
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With such a passion for collaboration, Michael is deeply dedicated to advocacy and social justice. Their gender expression/identity and neurodivergence (ADHD) have taught them to listen to those who are different and to stay engaged as an activist. Through their art, they seek to elevate and facilitate difficult conversations around xenophobia and systemic oppression.
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Michael most recently sang in the chorus for a semi-staged production of Verdi's Aida with the Boston Lyric Opera, but has relocated to Sacramento due to a family emergency. Last year, Michael performed the spoken roles of Zuniga and Garcia for a production of La tragédie de Carmen by Peter Brook and George Bizet with the Boston Opera Collaborative. They also co-produced a concert with Boston coach, pianist, and conductor Timothy Steele titled In Community: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Stories as part of the Milton Community Concerts series in Milton, MA. The proceeds of the concert were donated to the Transgender Emergency Fund. In January of 2024, they joined the chorus of Bellini’s Norma to perform with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra in Cambridge, MA.

 

Before their move to Boston in the summer of 2023, Michael was the bass soloist for Bach’s Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 as part of the Downtown Music at Grace concert series in White Plain, NY. In May of that year, they completed their master’s at Bard College Conservatory of Music with their graduate recital How We Move Forward, where they premiered an art song by composer John Paul Labno and poet Sasha Evangelista about raising their nonbinary child. A couple months earlier, they performed the role of Strephon in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe with The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program. Michael began 2023 with a trip to their father's homeland of Lebanon where they performed a recital titled An Hour of Song with their Lebanese-American, pianist collaborator Elias Dagher at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and at Nabu Museum in El Heri. In December 2022, they co-produced and performed alone.is.together.is., an experimental art song recital with music by American composers in Hyde Park, NY.

 

Coming up, Michael is excitedly preparing their set for a concert titled Trans Joy & Resistance which will be the second in a series of concerts organized for and by the transgender community of Sacramento. This concert will serve as a fundraiser for Pink Haven, an organization working to assist queer and transgender people fleeing states where their health and safety are at risk. The concert will be at 7pm on May 25th at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento.

 

For more about past and current performances, visit News.