Versatile American bass-baritone Kevin Short is thrilling audiences around the globe in repertoire ranging from the depths of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Monteverdi’s L’Coronazione di Poppea to Verdi’s Attila, Carmen’s Escamillo and Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer.
A sampling of his North America appearances include performances with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Pacific, Florida Grand Opera, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Sarasota Opera Company, Spoleto Opera Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and the Opera de las Americas.
His European and Asian credits include appearances with multiple opera companies, orchestras, and festivals. A few of which include Paris’ Opera Comique, Welsh National Opera, Kazan State Theater-Russia, Theatre Caen, Grand Theatre du Luxembourg, Oper der Stadt Köln, Semperoper Dresden, Stadttheater Stuttgart, Theater Aachen, Theater Basel, Theater Bern, Theater St. Gallen, Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos, Teatro di Catania, Teatro di San Carlo, Maggio Musicale, Savonlinna Festival-Finland; Bregenzer Festspiele-Austria, Baden-Baden Festspiele-Germany, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence-France, Festival Montpellier-France, l’Opéra de Rouen-France, l’Opéra de Reims-France, Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan and festivals in Beijing, China; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Granada, Valencia, Gran Canaria and Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Kevin also enjoys an active concert and recital schedule and has performed with the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Handel and Haydn Orchestra-Boston, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony, Netherlands Filharmonisch Orkest, Swiss and Italian RAI Orchestra, Radio France Orchestra, Marseille Philharmonie, Gulbenkian Orchestra-Lisbon, Portugal, Parma Reggio Emilia Orchestra, Malta Philharmonic, Transilvania Symphony, Thüringen Symphony Orchestra-Germany, Jena Symphony-Germany, Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russia, Omsk Philharmonic-Russia, Siberian State Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Hiroshima Symphony, the Kazan Symphony for the opening of the Universiade Games in Kazan, Russia, and the Winter Olympics Festival Orchestra for the opening ceremonies of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Kevin received his training at Morgan State University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Juilliard School of Music’s American Opera Center. While attending these institutions he was a prize winner in numerous competitions and garnered many awards. A few highlights include the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Internazionale Concorso per Voce Verdiane, the Rosa Ponselle International Vocal Competition, the Bruce Yarnell Competition for Basses and Baritones, the Liederkranz Competition, and awards from the Sullivan Foundation, Opera Index, Shoshana Foundation, and the George London Foundation. Kevin can be heard on his acclaimed solo CD from Pentatone records “Mephistopheles and other Bad Guys” which was listed by New York City’s WQXR radio station as one of the outstanding classical recordings of 2018. Pentatone’s recording of “Otello”, the Naxos Grammy nominated recording of “L’enfant et les Sortileges” and “Amahl and the Night Visitors”, “The Death of Webern” on Albany Records, and “Don Carlo” with the Metropolitan Opera on Sony classics. Upcoming releases will include San Francisco Classic’s recordings of “La Fanciulla del West”, “Madama Butterfly” and “Porgy and Bess.”
Kevin serves on the voice faculties of The Juilliard School and the University of Maryland, College Park.