Bass-Baritone Brian Banion recently made his debut with the Spoleto Festival USA as Leporello in Don Giovanni where critics exclaimed, “As Leporello, the up-and-coming bass-baritone Brian Banion displayed a warm, well-projected, zestful voice and an easy, natural way of acting that emphasized the boorish humor in Don Giovanni's servant/sidekick. Banion is no mean athlete: in the scene where he seduced Donna Elvira's maid, he easily vaulted up to the balcony where he sat astride the railing, legs swinging back and forth," and "Bass Brian Banion's Leporello was acted with great comic sense, his voice easily conveying his scorn of Giovanni's little black book in the catalog aria." He will be returning to Spoleto Festival USA summer 2006 to reprise the role.

Additional engagements this past season included, Escamillo in Carmen with the Festival Lyrique-en-Mer, Verdi’s Requiem on tour throughout France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain with The Robert Page Festival Singers, a debut with The Lyric Opera of Kansas City as the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro, and a return to Opera Columbus as Leporello in Don Giovanni.

He has appeared frequently with the Michigan Opera Theatre, Columbus Opera, Kentucky Opera, Greensboro Opera, Nevada Opera, Berkshire Opera, Opera Roanoke, and Columbus Light Opera, in such roles as the title role and Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, the title role in Eugene Onegin, Escamillo in Carmen, Baron Douphol and the Doctor in La Traviata, Doctor in Vanessa, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, and Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Mr. Banion has been a featured soloist with the Cincinnati May Festival, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Carmel Symphony, and the Anderson Symphony. His concert performances include Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven Ninth Symphony, Verdi Requiem, Mozart Requiem, Bach Passions, and Schubert Mass in A-flat and G.

In the past two years, Mr. Banion has won awards in several important vocal competitions, including those of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation, Opera Index Grant, Opera Columbus Vocal Competition, and the Bel Canto Vocal Scholarship. Mr. Banion is originally from London, Ohio. The young singer performed graduate work at Indiana University, where he studied with the now-retired Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone, Giorgio Tozzi. He completed his undergraduate degree from Capital University, where he studied Trombone.