MSI Guest Soloist:  Brian Keith Johnson, Baritone

Brian Keith Johnson has performed many roles in opera from Figaro in il barbiere di Siviglia to Ford in Falstaff.  He has also performed a variety of Musical Theatre roles ranging from Jim in Big River to Father/God in Children of Eden.  Other roles include Henry Box Brown and Frederick Douglass in Opera Columbus’ World Premiere of Leslie Burrs’ Vanqui, the Kaiser in Cleveland Public Theatre’s production of Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Masetto in Don Giovanni and Valentin in Faust with Cleveland Opera, Bellomy in The Fantasticks, Dewain in I Was Looking At The Ceiling and Then I Saw The Sky, Belcore in The Elixir of Love and Figaro in The Barber of Seville with Lyric Opera Cleveland, Figaro in il barbiere di Siviglia, Giovanni in Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with The Duke University Symphony and Crown in Porgy and Bess with The Beck Center and Union Avenue Opera.  This season’s operatic engagements include Peter in Hansel and Gretel with The Duke University Symphony, Germont in La Traviata with The Carolina Master Chorale and Nat Turner in Vanqui with Opera North, Inc.  

Mr. Johnson’s concert performances include excerpts from Die Zauberflöte and La Cenerentola with The Cleveland Orchestra, Carmina Burana with both The San Jose Ballet and The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Porgy in Porgy and Bess, The Five Mystical Songs, The Bach Magnificat and Carmina Burana with The Akron Symphony, The Fauré Requiem and Carmina Burana with The Youngstown Symphony, The Bach Magnificat, Crown in Porgy and Bess, Carmina Burana and Adam in The Creation with The Canton Symphony, Kirke Mechem’s Songs of the Slave from the opera John Brown with The Summit Choral Society, The Brahms Requiem and Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death with The Duke University Symphony,  The Mozart Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Carmina Burana with The Ashland Symphony, The Mozart C Minor Mass with The Dayton Bach Society, La Traviata and La Boheme  with The New Opera Festival di Roma Orchestra in Rome, Italy, Elijah with The Warren Philharmonic Orchestra, La Boheme with The Missouri Symphony and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with The Springfield Symphony.  This season’s concert engagements include Carmina Burana with The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, The Durufle Requiem with The Western Reserve Choral Society, The Messiah with The Akron Symphony Orchestra, The Verdi Requiem with The Warren Philharmonic Orchestra, Bach’s Coffee Cantata with The Canton Symphony Orchestra and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with The Missouri Symphony.