About - Fernando Araujo Baritone

Fernando Araujo
Baritone
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Baritone Fernando Araujo was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he began his piano studies at the age of seven and composition at eleven. At the age of twelve he sang his first operatic role, the Third Spirit in Mozart´s The Magic Flute in his native city. As a teenager he was prizewinner in international music competitions both as a pianist and as a singer in Brazil and in the USA, collecting subsequently his first stage experiences. He studied Piano and Voice at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg where his teachers were among others James King, Carlos Montanè, Boris Bakov, Lilian Sukis and Wolfgang Holzmair.  

He began his musical path as a pianist accompaying the singing classes of bel canto legend Virginia Zeani at Indiana University and the opera classes at the Mozarteum University.  Since recent years he follows a successful career as a singer his repertoire covers the leading roles for the baritone voice. Recent successes include Escamillo in the Carmen production of Arnaud Bernard at the Lithuanian National Opera; Papageno at the Munich Philharmonie in the Zauberflöte production of Ludwig Baumann; Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at the Verbier Festival (Opernstudio and concert with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa); Rigoletto and Amonasro at the Festival Winds of Baikal under the baton of Ilmar Lapinsch; Marcello in the La Bohème production of Sir Anton Juan at the Samsung Hall in Manila; Schaunard at the Gut Immling International Opera Festival in Bavaria with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Figaros of  Mozart and Rossini directed by Eike Gramss at the Mozarteum.

He participated as soloist in concerts under the direction of  Dennis Russell Davies during the Bernsteintagen in Salzburg, of  Fabio Luisi at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan and aside Ruggero Raimondi at the Auditório Nacional de Música de Madrid. On a scholarship to the Stage d´Eté in the Champagne, France, he had one more time the opportunity of working with Maestro Luisi, this time as Guglielmo and Leporello in scenes from Così and Don Giovanni.
      
Equally at home on the concert stage, he interpreted Beethoven´s Ninth Symphony in Russia under the baton of Ilmar Lapinsch and Frank Martin´s Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann für Bariton und Orchester in the Orchesterhaus in Salzburg under the baton of Hans Graf.

His repertoire encompasses many contemporary and new works:  in the Austrian premiere of Manfred Trojahn´s Die Limonen aus Sizilien directed by Kai Röhrig and Mascha Pörzgen at the Mozarteum he interpreted the role of Alberto Serra; in Jeppe Jacobsen´s "Der Sonnenkreis" staged by Barbara Bonney at the Oper im Berg Festival, he sang the role of Aryandes, and in the joint premieres of Christopher Preissing´s Inferno and Robert Kyr´s Paradiso at the DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts in Notre Dame, IN, under the patronage of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NY, he created the part of Dante.

Fernando is a recipient of the Audience Prize and the Verdi Prize at the 2016 Grandi Voci International Singing Competition under the patronage of KS Grace Bumbry.

Highlights of the 2017 Season are the title role in Rossini´s "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" at the Schloss Amerang in Bavaria, Papageno with the Philharmonie Salzburg, a Gala of Italian Opera aside Kammersängerin Grace Bumbry with Oper im Berg Festival in Salzburg, and the world-premiere of "Troja" by Jeppe Jacobsen and Ingo Kolonerics at the Skive Opera Festival, Denmark.

Fernando is a soloist of the Philharmonie Salzburg, the Salzburger Konzertgesellschaft and Oper im Berg Festival and cultural ambassador and co-founder of the Amadeus International Culture Committee. He is a dual citizen of Brazil and Italy and lives in Salzburg.


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