MICHAEL ALEXANDER AOUN
Bass-Baritone | Collaborative Artist
MICHAEL
ALEXANDER
AOUN
Bass-Baritone | Collaborative Artist
Bard Conservatory MM '23
UC Santa Cruz BM '20
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 production of Bellini’s Norma with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra in Cambridge, MA, and is singing regularly as a Hunsaker Soloist and section leader at First Parish in Milton, MA. Before moving to the Boston area, they performed across New York State and abroad in Lebanon. In May, 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. That month, they also 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. Earlier that year, they performed the role of Strephon in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe with The Orchestra Now (TÅŒN) 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 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. The performances will span four days, April 4th through 7th, at Arrow St Arts in Cambridge, MA. Currently, Michael is assisting in producing a concert with Boston collaborative pianist and conductor Timothy Steele to take place on April 28th. The concert, In Community: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Stories, is part of the Milton Community Concerts series at First Parish in Milton, MA, and the proceeds of the concert will go to the Transgender Emergency Fund.
For more about past and current performances, visit News.
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