Matthew Patrick Morris

Baritone & Actor | Associate Artistic Director

Matthew Patrick Morris has garnered international recognition for the depth and versatility of his artistry as an actor and singer. He is as equally at home on the opera, concert, and Broadway stages as he is on film and television. As Le Monde declared, “you really want to hear him in either an opera or a musical. He has a big presence, a warm baritone voice, immense humanity, and the gift of an actor.”

In the past few years Morris has debuted on The West End, at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris and the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, with the El Paso, Gotham Chamber, and New York City Operas, with the Boston, American, London, and Leipzig MDR Symphony orchestras, starred in the National Tour of A Christmas Carol, and appeared on Law & Order and in the movie The Producers!

Upcoming engagements include A.R.T.'s world premiere Crossing by Matt Aucoin and directed by Diane Paulus, Kurt Weill's Der Protagonist at Fire Island Opera Festival, and a recording of Libby Larsen's Neruda Songs for SongFest at Colburn's 20th Anniversary celebration CD.

In the 2013-14 season, Morris made several important debuts. He sang the role of Schaunard in La Bohème with both El Paso Opera and the Savannah Philharmonic as well as Masetto in Don Giovanni with the Savannah Voice Festival. In addition, he debuted as the baritone soloist in Brahm’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, as a solo recitalist at the Kennedy Center as the winner of the 2013 Vocal Arts DC Young Artist Competition, and reprised his roles in Candide with the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra.

Recent opera roles include an exclusive return engagement to the role of Papageno in legendary director Peter Brook’s Moliére Award-winning adaptation of Mozart’s Magic Flute (Une Flûte Enchantée) in Paris, Milan, and on the subsequent international tour. His performance earned him a return invitation to many theaters in Europe, including to France in the Théatre de Caen's double-bill of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges. In the United States, Morris sang the baritone lead, Claude, in Gluck’s L’Arbre Enchanté for the inaugural season of the Fire Island Opera Festival. In England, The East Anglian Daily Times raved about his performance of Le Mari in Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias at the Aldeburgh Music Festival, declaring it a “thoroughly commanding and effortless performance that thrilled a packed house.” As an apprentice with Santa Fe Opera, Opera News hailed his performance of Apollo in Gluck's Alcèste as "impressive." As a Tanglewood Fellow Morris sang the roles of Dionysus and Théramène in Milhaud's L'Abandon D'Ariane and La Délivrance de Thésée under the direction of Mark Morris.

Highlights of his theater career include King Charles in Candide at the Barbican in London, Young Scrooge in the National Tour of A Christmas Carol, Baritone in the Jazz Trio in Trouble in Tahiti at the Théâtre de Caen, George in Our Town with the Aspen Opera Theater, Gus in The Dumb Waiter and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream both at the Juilliard School, and The Soldier in Hello Again at the Manhattan Theatre Source.

A frequent recitalist, Morris has performed in concert with such artists as Stephanie Blythe, Margo Garrett, Graham Johnson, and Dawn Upshaw. His dedication to art song has led him to be named a Distinguished Alumnus and as of 2013, Associate Artistic Director of SongFest at the Colburn School. An avid activist for equal rights Morris has produced and performed in the concert series You Are Not Alone alongside Betty Buckley, Lea DeLaria, Aaron Lazar, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Tartaglia, Jeanine Tesori, and many more. The concerts have raised tens of thousands of dollars for The Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention hotline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.

Morris trained at the Juilliard School, at Bard College Conservatory under the direction of world-renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw, and with Peter Brook. He was an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera and Tanglewood Music Festival, a Stern Fellow at SongFest, and a finalist of the Metropolitan National Council Middle Atlantic Region Auditions and Liederkranz Song Competition. He was the winner of the 2013 Vocal Arts DC Competition.