Biography

Drama Desk Award-nominated baritone Justin Austin was named Rising Star of the Year at the 2024 International Opera Awards and is a recipient of the 2024 Marian Anderson Vocal Award. During the 2025-26 season, he makes his HGO debut as Jake in the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. In summer 2025, he performs in Joel Thompson’s HGO-commissioned world-premiere song cycle, A Voice Within. Following the world premiere of Damien Geter’s American Apollo at Des Moines Metro Opera and appearances at Caramoor and the Sag Harbor Song Festival in summer 2024, Austin began the 2024-25 season with his house debut at Los Angeles Opera as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet and returned to the company later in the season for his role debut as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. He returned to Opera Theatre of St. Louis for the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s This House, starring as Lindon. In concert, he returned to Carnegie Hall for Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Cecilia Chorus of New York and performed selections from Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones at La Jolla Music Society, The Soraya in Northridge, CA, and Charleston Gaillard Center, among others. He also returned to Stuttgart, Germany for a concert with the Stuttgart Philharmonic and Opera for Peace and conceived and co-artistic directed My Brother’s Keeper for New York Festival of Song at Kaufman Music Center. He holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Manhattan School of Music.