Hailed as an artist “alight with the spirit of the music” (Boston Globe), three-time Grammy-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton has built a vibrant career, performing regularly throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Burton’s 2024/25 season begins with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, led by Gustavo Dudamel. Highlights of the season include returns to the Milwaukee Symphony for his second season as Artist-in-Residence, featuring Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and later Bach’s Ich habe genug, both conducted by Ken-David Masur. He makes his Boston Symphony subscription debut with Michael Tilson Thomas’ Walt Whitman Songs, conducted by Teddy Abrams, and his Toronto Symphony debut in Mozart’s Requiem under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Additional performances include Brahms/Glanert’s Serious Songs and Mozart’s Requiem with the St. Louis Symphony under Stéphane Denève; Mozart’s Requiem with the Minnesota Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård; and Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony, led by Masaaki Suzuki.
During the 2023/24 season, Burton collaborated frequently with Michael Tilson Thomas, including performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and Copland’s Old American Songs with the New World Symphony. He also sang Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort, Handel’s Messiah with both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and performed the title role in Sweeney Todd at Vanderbilt University. With the Cleveland Orchestra, he appeared in a semi-staged production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. As the Milwaukee Symphony’s Artist-in-Residence, Burton joined Ken-David Masur for three subscription weeks.
A multiple award-winning artist, Burton earned his second Grammy Award in 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for his role in Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). He won his first Grammy in 2013 as an original member of the groundbreaking ensemble Roomful of Teeth for their debut album of new commissions. In 2024, he earned his third Grammy for their latest recording, Rough Magic, featuring works by Caroline Shaw, William Brittelle, Peter Shin, and Eve Beglarian.
Burton’s discography also includes Songs of Struggle & Redemption: We Shall Overcome (Acis); the Grammy-nominated recording of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road (Naxos); Holocaust, 1944 by Lori Laitman (Acis); and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. His album of spirituals received critical acclaim, with The New York Times calling it “profoundly moving…a beautiful and lovable disc.”
Burton holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College and Conservatory and a Master of Music degree from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. He is currently an assistant professor of voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.
Dashon Burton appears by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management, Inc., 307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2006, New York NY 10001.
Forays into more varied repertoire have included his performances of Michael Tippet’s A Child of our Time at Harvard, Barber’s Dover Beach, and Hans Eisler’s Ernste Gesaenge with A Far Cry chamber orchestra in Boston, Copland’s Old American Songs with the Kansas City Symphony, Schubert’s Die Winterreise with string quartet, and performances and recording of Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard with the vocal group Conspirare. Last season, he premiered Paul Moravec’s new oratorio, Sanctuary Road, at Carnegie Hall and performed David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Dashon’s 2018/19 season begins with his debut at the Salzburg Festival in Salomé. He sings Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and with the Cincinnati Symphony, Dvoark’s Stabat Mater with the Houston Symphony, Mozart’s Coronation Mass et al. with Philharmonia Baroque, the C minor Mass with the Grand Rapids Symphony, and the Requiem with the Bethlehem Bach Festival and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He sings also Haydn’s Creation and the role of Zebul in Handel’s Jeptha, the Verdi Requiem, Moussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, and returns to the Cleveland Orchestra for a subscription week of Schubert’s Mass in E flat Major in May. December finds him performing with the contemporary vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which Dashon is an original member, at Paris’Théatre de la Ville in Peter Sellars’ production of Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus, un ritual de mort.
Burton returns to Trinity Wall St. for a Baroque recital this season. For his other recitals in Boston and San Francisco, the program is based on his recording Songs of Struggle and Redemption: We Shall Overcome, singled out by the New York Times as “profoundly moving…a beautiful and lovable disc” in its May 2016 Classical Play list.
Burton’s opera engagements include singing Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte in Dijon and Paris, and the role of Jupiter in Rameau’s Castor and Pollux with Christoph Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques. He has toured Europe in the St. John Passion with Christoph Prégardien’s Le Concert Lorraine, and in Italy with Maasaki Suzuki and the Yale Schola Cantorum in the St. Matthew Passion, a work he also sang on tour in the Netherlands with the NNSO.
Dashon has won prizes from the ARD international Music Competition and the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and from the Oratorio Society of New York and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Competition for Young American Singers. He graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and received his Master of Music degree from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music.
