EMERGING ARTISTS [LIVE!] ONLINE

Justin Birchell’s concert was recorded live on Boston Court’s Main Stage theatre on October 10, 2020. The recording is available to view until October 18.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Alaskan Justin Birchell is a baritone, composer, and educator. He is studying toward an M.M. in Voice Performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music (June 2021) and received his B.A. in Music Performance from UCLA (June 2019). Birchell is a recipient of the Elaine Krown Klein Fine Arts Scholarship, The Mimi Alpert Feldman Scholarship, and a Dean’s Medal for academic excellence, and was a Fellow of the Gluck Fellows Music Outreach Program. Justin was a 2019-20 winner of the UCLA Philharmonia All-Stars concerto competition.

For many years, Justin was passionately active in the performing arts scene in his hometown of Anchorage, Alaska. He was the primary music director and singing teacher at TBA Theatre, Inc, an educational nonprofit, for four years. He music-directed TBA’s mainstage production of The Sound of Music and composed the live original score for TBA’s cirque nouveau spectacle Illusions: Wild Things, among many other projects there. For two years, Justin served as the choir director at Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, where he also composed a number of original choral works. He also presented the workshop World Music as a Window on the Human Spirit to the Pacific Northwest District Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association. As an educator, Birchell has presented workshops, masterclasses, and guest lectures for the University of Alaska Anchorage, Palmer Arts Council, Anchorage School District and others. Justin was the 2018 winner of the Ted Stevens Young Alaskan Artist Award from the Anchorage Festival of Music.

Justin is also a passionate lover of wilderness, and before college, he spent over three years working in a remote wilderness lodge in the Brooks Mountain Range of Northern Alaska, about 250 miles from the nearest town (or opera house!).

As an opera performer, Justin began his career in Anchorage Opera’s chorus while still in high school and later sang the role of Sacristan in Anchorage Opera’s Tosca and Samuel in their Pirates of Penzance. Other notable opera roles include Figaro in UAA Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro, Dr. Falke and Herr Frank in Portland State University’s Die Fledermaus, Silvio in Opera Fairbanks’ I Pagliacci, along with numerous roles through Opera UCLA, including creating the roles of Manfred in Lost Childhood and Padre Antonio in Juana, both world premieres. Justin is engaged to sing the role of Marcello in La Bohème with Eureka Opera in May of 2021.

Birchell also remains active as a composer. His original song-cycle Three Nocturnes – Words of the Night was premiered at UCLA in June 2018 by soprano Stephanie Deprez and pianist Victoria Kirsch, and in June 2019 he sang the premiere of his own art song Aurora Aubade, on poetry from Alaskan poet Ian Colbert’s beautiful volume Midnight Elegies. Justin’s incidental music for The Death of Edgar Allan Poe traveled to Scotland in August of 2018 for TBA Theatre’s production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

More info about Justin can be found at justinbirchell.com.

ABOUT THE MENTOR

Brent McMunn is conductor/music director of USC Thornton Opera and assistant professor of vocal arts. His professional operatic conducting debut was with the New York City Opera National Touring Company in La fille du regiment. Shortly after, he made his Lincoln Center debut with the New York City Opera in Les contes d’Hoffmann, and subsequently conducted in four separate seasons for that company. McMunn came to opera after an established career as a pianist, known especially for his collaborations with a number of eminent string players, including Lynn Harrell, Cynthia Phelps, and Ronald Copes, now of the Juilliard Quartet, appearing at the major Southern California venues as well as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Carnegie Hall. His work in and love for opera began when he joined Grant Gershon as one of two pianists at the Los Angeles Opera in its early days. Concurrently, he was made director of opera at California State University, Long Beach, where he began conducting and produced a wide repertory of operas. After his New York conducting success, he went on to guest conduct at a number of North American companies, such as Arizona Opera, Calgary Opera, Lake George Opera, Kentucky Opera, Opera New Jersey and Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, and spent several years as co-artistic director of the Ridgefield Opera Company in Connecticut. In addition to his conducting, his work as assistant and cover conductor at LA Opera, New York City Opera, and six seasons at the Santa Fe Opera, has given him a repertoire of over 70 operas, including those by Handel, Mozart, Puccini, the major Strauss operas, and a number of new works and premieres, with a special emphasis on the Bel Canto repertoire. He has continuously enjoyed working with young singers in the young artist programs of the major companies, as a coach at the Juilliard School, and as a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival.