Don’t Be Angry!
Possessing a “mighty lyric voice” (The New York Times) “with a burly, burnished tone capable of striking nuance and color” (Washington Post), Drama Desk Award–nominated baritone Justin Austin is the recipient of the 2024 Marian Anderson Vocal Award and is the winner of the Rising Star category of the 2024 International Opera Awards.
World-renowned baritone Justin Austin will reprise a program he debuted at Carnegie Hall in March 2024. He curated this arrangement of songs in response to the often-heard phrase “Don’t Be Angry!,” highlighting irony, dissidence and rage. It includes music by Kurt Weill (Three Penny Opera), Olaf Bienert, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Robert Owens, and poems by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Tucholsky, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes among others. Austin will be joined in conversation with Sabine Eckmann, William T. Kemper Director and Chief Curator, to discuss this captivating program and the accompanying exhibition on view in the Teaching Gallery that explores artists’ responses to social inequities, including war, political corruption, class struggle, and racism.
Justin Austin, Baritone
Gail Hintz, Piano
Support
This event is part of the “Belonging in Opera” series. In spring 2021 WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity, in partnership with WashU’s Department of Music and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, began a multi-year exploration of race and opera through scholarly conversations; exchanges between composers, performers, researchers, and arts administrators; and performances by some of the world’s preeminent contemporary musicians. The aim of the series is to gain unique insights into the ways in which race and ethnicity have shaped the history of opera and are animating its future.