Celebrated for his \u201cbrilliant\u201d and \u201cbooming\u201d voice, Bass-Baritone Devon Russo performs frequently as a soloist and ensemble member in Opera, Contemporary Music, and Early Music throughout the United States and Europe. Onstage, he has performed the roles of Secretary Welles (Kay\u2019s Frederick Douglass), Jochanaan (Salome), Georges (La Cage aux Folles), Il Medico (Macbeth), the Corporal and Sergeant Sulpice (Daughter of the Regiment), Johannes “Pa” Zegner (Proving Up), Judge Turpin (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), Sam (Trouble in Tahiti), Oloferne (La Giuditta), Papageno (Die Zauberfl\u04e7te), the Drunken Poet and Hymen (The FairyQueen), and Arbas in Lully\u2019s Cadmus et Hermione and the title roles in Gianni Schicchi, Signor Deluso, Le Carnaval Mascarade and Dido and Aeneas. With a particular love for Handel\u2019s operas and oratorios, he has sung Tirenio (Il Pastor Fido), Manoah (Samson), Farasmane (Radamisto) and Argante (Rinaldo). He has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Trinity Repertory Company, Boston Early Music Festival, Odyssey Opera, Boston University Opera Institute, Opera in Williamsburg, Opera Providence, and Salt Marsh Opera.<\/p>\n
In concert, he has sung the baritone and bass solos in Carmina Burana, Vaughan
\nWilliam\u2019s Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Five Mystical Songs, Mozart\u2019s Mass in c
\nminor, Faure\u2019s Requiem, Durufle Requiem, Cherubini\u2019s Messa Solenne in Do Maggiore, Satan in Kallembach\u2019s Most Sacred Body, Haydn\u2019s Paukenmesse, Cacilienmesse, & Missa in Angustiis \u201cLord Nelson Mass\u201d, Finzi\u2019s In Terra Pax, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Bach\u2019s Weihnachts-Oratorium, Markus-Passion as Jesus, Johannes-Passion & Cantatas BWV 116, 91, 137, 97, 39,147 & 65, the title role in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the bass solo in Handel’s Messiah, as well as singing the title role in a concert of scenes from Wagner’s Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder. He has performed with Seraphic Fire, the Sante Fe Desert Chorale, Ensemble Altera, Chorus of Westerly, Quicksilver Baroque, Brevitas, the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, Musica Dolce and the Star Island Chamber Music Festival, Et al., the Blacksburg Master\u2019s Chorale, Upper Valley Baroque, the Masterworks Chorale, Harvard pro Musica, the Nashua Choral Society, Cantata Singers in Boston, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and has rostered with the New York Philharmonic Chorus and The Crossing.<\/p>\n
Devon is currently a Jane & Steven Alkin Emerging Artist with the Boston Lyric Opera. Devon has taken part in the Internationalen Sommerakademie am Mozarteum Salzburg, Boston Early Music Festival Young Artist Program, the Voces8 Choral Scholar Programme, Acad\u00e9mie Orford Musique, the Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, Source Song Festival, the Manhattan Opera Studio Summer Festival, Singing Down the Barriers at the University of Michigan with the Hampsong Foundation, the Amherst Early Music Festival Opera Project and Winter Workshop, the Haymarket Opera Summer Institute, the Baroque Opera Workshop at Queen\u2019s College and Connecticut Lyric Opera’s Young Artist Program. He has been a vocal apprentice at the Nahant Music Festival and a Choral Scholar with the Oratorio Society of New York, the Berkshire Choral Festival, and Trinity Church (Newport, RI). Devon is currently a Choral Scholar at Marsh Chapel in Boston, locally, he performs both as a soloist and an ensemble member with the Schola Cantorum at St. Stephen\u2019s (Providence, RI), Ensemble Altera, the Gregorian Concert Choir at the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, and with Collegium Ancora the ensemble-in-residence at Grace Church Providence.<\/p>\n
Devon has performed in many world class venues including Carnegie Hall, Boston\u2019s
\nSymphony Hall, Jordan Hall, the Boston Opera House, St. John the Divine (NYC),
\nMarsh Chapel (Boston), the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at Tanglewood. He was a Semifinalist in the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo
\nCompetition in 2023 and 2024, The National First Place Winner of The American Prize in Voice Friedrich & Virginia Schorr Memorial Award in 2023 and in 2012 was the runner up for the NATS Artist Awards Competition. He currently studies with Penelope Bitzas and has studied with Mark Oswald and Mark Conley. Musical coaches include Christian Immler and Dashon Burton. He has performed in productions directed by Anne Bogart, Gilbert Blin, and Benjamin Luxon. He has sung in masterclasses presented by Morris Robinson, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Ryan McKinny and Tom Chipullo. A passionate educator and conductor, he is currently the Director of Choral Activities at Bryant University and Artist-Teacher in Classical Voice at the University of Rhode Island. Devon previously was the Assistant Conductor for the Handel and Haydn Society Youth Chorus and was a member of the voice faculty for many years at Providence College, the Community College of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School and South Shore Conservatory. Many of his students move on to study in conservatories and universities while performing and placing with major state and national choirs and competitions. Devon earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance at Boston University, his Master\u2019s in Vocal Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and Bachelors in Vocal Performance and Music Education from the University of Rhode Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4199,"featured_media":11193,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"peoplegroups":[52],"class_list":["post-10591","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","peoplegroups-voice"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/10591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/10591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11197,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/10591\/revisions\/11197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"peoplegroups","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/peoplegroups?post=10591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}