Ian
Burns

Baritone

“Ian Burns joue – et chante – parfaitement un Sharpless complice de cette sinistre farce.”
[Ian Burns plays – and sings – perfectly a Sharpless complicit in this sinister farce.]
- Jean-Marcel Humbert, ForumOpera.com

About Me

Peruvian-American Baritone,Ian Burns is rapidly gaining recognition internationally for his rich tone and self-assured stage presence. In 2021, Burns spent the summer at the Immling Festival (Germany) singing Sharpless in Madama Butterfly.

This season he also traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia to compete in the Tbilisi Opera Crown Competition where he was a semi-finalist. In 2020 Ian was also a winner of the Connecticut District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a finalist in the Zenith Opera Competition.

Burns was prepared to cover the roles of Herr Zeller in The Sound of Music and Masetto in Don Giovanni as a member of The Glimmerglass Festival Young Artist Program (2020,) but instead participated in the company’s six-week virtual festival created in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This allowed him to take advantage of many coachings and classes with industry leaders Francesca Zambello, Joseph Colaneri and Gayletha Nichols.

The summer of 2019 saw Burns as an Apprentice Artist at Santa Fe Opera, where he covered the roles of the Foreman in Janáček’s Jenůfa and The Gardener in the world premiere of Poul Ruders’ The Thirteenth Child. He also covered Marcello in La Bohème, a favorite role that the baritone had previously performed at the University of North Florida (2018) and at the European Music Academy in the Czech Republic (2017). Burns also debuted with the European Music Academy, as Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (2016.)

While working on his diploma at the University of British Columbia (UBC,) Burns performed the role of Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola, “rattl(ing) through his patter-songs with self-confident pomposity” (Review Vancouver). There, he also sang the roles of Lieutenant Audebert in Silent Night, Captain in Eugene Onegin, Lakai, Perückenmacher, and covered Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos. Burns was also the baritone soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem with the UBC Symphony Orchestra. Burns worked with Professor J. Patrick Raftery at UBC at the Taos Opera Institute in 2018. Burns started his theatrical studies in theater at Valencia College in Florida.

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