Dashon Burton
About this Artist
Bass-baritone Dashon Burton has established a vibrant career, appearing regularly throughout the United States and Europe in key elements of his repertoire—Bach’s St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, and the B-minor Mass, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Brahms’ German Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and the Mozart Requiem.
He opened the 2021/22 season with the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston led by Marin Alsop for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which he repeats later in the season with the Nashville Symphony and Giancarlo Guerrero. Throughout the season, he makes several notable orchestral debuts: the Chicago Symphony in Handel’s Messiah led by Nicholas McGegan, the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Michael Tilson Thomas for his Meditations on Rilke, the Pittsburgh Symphony for the Dvořák Te Deum led by Manfred Honeck, and the Verdi Requiem with the Seattle Symphony and Thomas Dausgaard.
He continues his relationship with San Francisco Performances in appearances throughout the season and makes a debut with Celebrity Series of Boston in recital.
Operatic engagements in recent seasons have included Salome at the Salzburg Festival led by Franz Welser-Möst, Peter Sellars’ production of Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus: un rituel de la mort at Paris’ Théâtre de la Ville as well as Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte in Dijon and Paris, and Jupiter in Rameau’s Castor et Pollux with Les Talens Lyriques.
Dashon Burton won his second Grammy in March of 2021, for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album featuring Dame Ethyl Smyth’s The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). An original member of the groundbreaking vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, he won his first Grammy for their recording of Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices. His other recordings include Songs and Struggles of Redemption; We Shall Overcome, singled out by The New York Times as “profoundly moving…a beautiful and lovable disc”; Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road (Naxos); Holocaust, 1944 by Lori Laitman; and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Dashon Burton received a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College & Conservatory and a Master of Music at Yale University. He is an Assistant Professor of Voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.