Hugh Russell
baritone
Baritone Hugh Russell has performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), Cincinnati Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony, among many others.
He has been honored to work with many eminent conductors, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jaap van Zweden, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, Manfred Honeck, Edo de Waart, Kent Nagano, Donald Runnicles, Steuart Bedford, Michael Christie, Hans Graf, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and Rossen Milanov.
Operatically, he has been featured in productions at Los Angeles Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Atlanta Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Arizona Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Vancouver Opera, Calgary Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Manitoba Opera, the Wexford Festival, and Angers-Nantes Opera. Hugh has also been featured in recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and in many appearances with the New York Festival of Song.
As a pianist, he has been featured in performance with Stephanie Blythe at a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Seattle Opera, and has also been featured in performance with Christine Brewer for Illinois Humanities. In the coming season, Hugh will be featured in performance with pianist Craig Terry, and will return to North Carolina Opera to perform Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. He will also return to the New Mexico Philharmonic to perform his signature work, Orff’s Carmina Burana.
In the 2024-25 season, Bravos had several featured performances, including the premiere of a song cycle The Pure and Impure by composer Elizabeth Doyle at Piano-Forte Studios in Chicago; a reprise of a role he premiered, Kenny Kincaid, in Okpebholo & Campbell: The Cook-Off with New Orleans Opera; Vaughan Williams: Sea Symphony with the Helena Symphony and several engagements singing Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem including with the Apollo Chorus (Chicago), The Grace Chorale (Brooklyn NY) and the Evanston Symphony.
Highlights for the 2023-24 season included revisiting the role of Count Almaviva, Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro in Columbia, South Carolina (Christopher James Ray); Countess’ Lackey/Ivan Ivanovich, Shostakovich: The Nose with Chicago Opera Theater (Lidiya Yankovskaya and Francesca Zambello); a featured performance of Schubert: Der Winterreise for Opera Up Close; a debut with Helena Symphony on Rachmaninoff: The Bells of Ecstasy (Allan R. Scott) and Vaughn Williams: Five Mystical Songs (JosephWelch) and two performances with Jake Heggie for the Chicago Opera Theater premiere of his and Gene Scherer’s new opera, Before It All Goes Dark.
The 2022-23 season, saw Bravos in Boston for Let’s Celebrate! (White Snake Projects), Silvio, I Pagliacci, (Opera Tampa) and Kenny Kincaid in Okpebholo & Campbell The Cook-Off (Chicago Opera Theater). Other favorites include Riff, West Side Story (New Philharmonic Opera); Maximilian, Candide (Ravinia Festival); George Jones, Weill: Street Scene, and Masetto, Don Giovanni (Virginia Opera); Inman, Higdon: Cold Mountain (Music Academy of the West); and Tom Joad, Gordon: The Grapes of Wrath. House credits include Sarasota Opera, San Diego Opera, Central City Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and Lyric Opera of Chicago. In concert, he has sung with the symphonies of Santa Fe, Milwaukee, Madison, Hawaii and Colorado. As a recitalist, he has sung as a Vocal Fellow at Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute, the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago and Horto Music Festival in Pelion,Greece.
Bravos earned the Doctorate of Musical Arts at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. He serves as Artist Faculty and Associate Program Director of Opera at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts.