Russell Braun, baritone, is one of the most sought-after lyric baritones on the international stage today. He performs regularly at the Metropolitan Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, l’Opéra de Paris, the San Diego Opera, the San Francisco Opera and the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. His signature operatic roles to date are the title roles of Pelléas et Mélisande, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Billy Budd, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, as well as the Count (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Guglielmo (Cosí fan tutte). Russell is in much demand as a concert artist. He has performed in Hector Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Elijah with the Minnesota Orchestra, Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with Les Violons du Roy in Québec City, and with many of the world’s leading conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Claudio Abbado, Sylvain Cambreling, James Conlon, Bruno Campanella, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Richard Bradshaw and Bernard Labadie. Recordings to date include Schubert’s Die Winterreise, Mozart Arias (CBC Records), Apollo e Daphne with Les Violons du Roy (Dorian), Dido and Aeneas (Telarc and CBC Records) amongst others. “I am of Ukrainian descent and feel a strong connection to the Ukrainian people and to their style of singing,” Russell says. “In the 1920s, as a consequence of the persecution of the Mennonites, my grandparents on my father’s side fled Ukraine for the safety of Canada. I can still hear the beautiful, ringing, musical accent of my grandmother Olga Giesbrecht...”

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