Performance Year: 2026
Called “a voice for this historic moment” (The Washington Post), GRAMMY Award-winning baritone Will Liverman has been described as “a gifted chameleon of a singing actor who disappears into his roles” (Opera Magazine) with a “beaming, high baritone that easily asserts” (LA Times). Liverman has been praised internationally for his versatility in dramatic and comedic operatic roles and his dedication and vision as a composer, artist, and advisor, helping to evolve and push the performing arts industry forward.
Recent and upcoming highlights include an appearance with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival, Le nozze di Figaro at Washington National Opera and Pearl Fishers with Washington Concert Opera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Houston Grand Opera, Messiah with the San Francisco Symphony and Music of the Baroque, Bernstein’s Mass with Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Die Zauberflöte at Santa Fe Opera and the St. Louis Symphony, and more. Volume II and a special edition CD vinyl release of Liverman’s The Dunbar/Moore Sessions were released in the summer of 2025, featuring performances by Liverman alongside Joshua Blue, Jacqueline Echols, Lady Jess, Mykal Kilgore, Isabel Leonard, Erin Morley, Adam Richardson, Lindsey Sharpe, and Ann Toomey. Additionally, Liverman’s album Show Me The Way with pianist Jonathan King was also nominated for the 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
Following summer 2024 appearances at the BBC Proms, Tanglewood, and Aspen Music Festival, Liverman’s 2024-2025 season included a reprise of his iconic role of Papageno in the Metropolitan Opera’s holiday presentation of The Magic Flute, a return to Lyric Opera of Chicago as Marcello in La bohème, and Dutch National Opera as Ned Keene in Peter Grimes. Concert engagements included Kaija Saariaho’s Sombre at Carnegie Hall with the International Contemporary Ensemble; Carmina Burana with the San Francisco Symphony; Jenufa with The Cleveland Orchestra; performances with the London Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Antonio Pappano; works by Burleigh, Vaughan Williams, and Still in a recital at The Concertgebouw; works by Schubert, Burleigh, and Larsen with the Oxford International Song Festival; Brahms’ Requiem with the Rhode Island Philharmonic; Shawn Okpebholo’s Two Black Churches and Orff’s Carmina Burana with Oakland Symphony; a song cycle of his own compositions at National Sawdust; New York Festival of Song at Kaufman Music Center; and String Theory at the Hunter.
Lyric Opera of Chicago presented the world premiere of Liverman’s new opera The Factotum in 2023, in which he starred and composed with DJ King Rico. Inspired by Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Liverman and Rico place the story in a present-day Black barbershop on Chicago’s South Side, celebrating the strength of community and power of the human spirit in a soul opera that “offers a chameleonic pastiche of soul, funk, and classical elements that is incredibly effective” (Opera News).
Accolades include the Beverly Sills Artist Award by The Metropolitan Opera (2022), a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant (2022), Marian Anderson Vocal Award (2020), Richard Tucker Career Grant (2019), Sphinx Medal of Excellence (2019), 3Arts Award (2017), George London Award (2017), Luminarts Fellow by the Luminarts Cultural Foundation (2017), Stella Maris International Vocal Competition (2015), Gerda Lissner Charitable Fund Award (2015), and Opera Index Top Prize (2015). Liverman is an alumnus of the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and was a Glimmerglass Festival Young Artist. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School (M.M.) and Wheaton College in Illinois (B.M.).
