Andrew R. Munn
The American bass and cultural organizer Andrew Robert Munn was born in Palo Alto, California in 1986. He pursued a bachelors degree in voice at the University of Michigan, where he studied with George Shirley and Stephen West. A political and ecological awakening in 2007 led Andrew to dedicate himself to the movement for climate justice. Until 2014, he lived in the Appalachian mountains, working as a leading organizer in a constellation of community resistance to mountaintop removal coal mining.
A love of singing, and a desire to explore and reflect upon questions of ecology, history, and power in the artistic sphere brought Andrew back to the singer’s path. He honed his craft under the mentorship of Dawn Upshaw and Sanford Sylvan at the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program (MM 2016) and The Juilliard School (GD 2018), spending summers as a fellow of the Aspen Summer Music Festival and School and the Tanglewood Music Center. He performs on opera and concert stages across Europe and North America, including principle roles and world premieres at Carnegie Hall, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Munich Biennale for Music Theater, Salzburg State Theater, and Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik.
Next to his work on the operatic stage, Andrew’s work as a creative artist and reinterpreter of historic repertoire is gaining recognition. For the concept “Winterreise in a post-Winter World,” he was named a finalist for the 2021 Rhonefestival für Liedkunst’s Lieder Innovation Prize. With the American pianist Jacob Greenberg, he is realizing the concept as a duet between Schubert’s masterpiece and sonified climate data. For Berlin Verses, his English-language adaptations of Hanns Eisler’s settings of poems by Bertolt Brecht, Andrew was awarded a fellowship from Germany’s Neustart Kultur initiative.
With the pianist Rami Sarieddine, he founded the collaborative hub and duo+ Chimera in 2019. The duo+ combines a deep exploration of the art song repertoire with a taste for informed experimentation, focusing on the relationship between, and inseparability of, human and natural forces. The duo+ has presented recitals in Abu Dhabi, Athens, Berlin, Paris, New York, and Nicosia.
He is an associated artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel where he enjoys the mentorship of José van Dam and Sophie Koch. As an educator he maintains a private voice studio and teaches youth masterclasses internationally as a Juilliard Global Teaching Artist.
Andrew serves on the board of the renown Highlander Center for Research and Education, acting as a link between fellow cultural organizers within American and European movements for social and environmental justice.
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/andrew-munn-88305820