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 his professional work and his continual self-development. An all-or-nothing person, Michael views music as a means of exploring one’s whole self and creating something entirely unique. He feels strongly about his art reflecting his personal values of authenticity and human connection.
With such a passion for collaboration, Michael is deeply dedicated to advocacy and social justice. His gender expression/identity and neurodivergence (ADHD) have taught him to listen to those who are different and to stay engaged as an activist. Through his art, he seeks to elevate and facilitate difficult conversations around xenophobia and systemic oppression.
Michael has most recently performed across New York State and abroad in Lebanon. In March, he performed the role of Strephon in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe with The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program at The Fisher Center in the Hudson Valley. In January, he traveled to his father's homeland of Lebanon where he performed a voice and piano recital titled An Hour of Song with his Lebanese-American, pianist collaborator Elias Dagher at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon and at Nabu Museum in El Heri, Lebanon. Michael sang as bass soloist with the Albany Symphony in December of 2022 for their holiday performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Part VI. That month, he also co-curated an experimental recital of music by American composers titled alone.is.together.is. Michael made his New York City debut in May 2022, performing in the concert series Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
For more about past and current performances, visit News.
ORGANIZATIONS, CAUSES, AND MUTUAL AIDS
THE LOVELAND FOUNDATION
Loveland Foundation is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls. Our resources and initiatives are collaborative and they prioritize opportunity, access, validation, and healing. We are becoming the ones we’ve been waiting for.
FOR THE GWORLS
We are a Black, trans-led collective that curates parties to fundraise money to help Black transgender people pay for their rent, gender-affirming surgeries, smaller co-pays for medicines/doctor’s visits, and travel assistance.
THE LAST PRISONER PROJECT
As the United States moves away from the criminalization of cannabis, giving rise to a major new industry, there remains the fundamental injustice inflicted upon those who have suffered criminal convictions and the consequences of those convictions.
At the Last Prisoner Project we utilize a three-pronged approach to securing FULL freedom for the communities we serve. Through intervention, advocacy, and awareness campaigns the Last Prisoner Project works to redress the past and continuing harms of these unjust laws and policies.
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE
The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
LIST OF BAIL FUNDS FOR PROTESTORS
The link below will take you to a list of bail funds in the United States and Canada.
SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE
Events, initiatives, and fundraisers aimed at protecting the people of Ukraine.