Henry Griffin, baritone

Henry Griffin, described as “luminous” and “supremely tender” by the Chautauqua Daily, is a 25-year old baritone, keyboardist, and conductor. He is pursuing his master’s in opera at Northwestern University with Nancy Gustafson (MM ‘27) and he also studied voice with the late Marlena Kleinman Malas at Manhattan School of Music (BM ‘23). 

 

Henry has sung all of his life including solo appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera of Chicago as a boy soprano from age 11, as well as the more recent roles of Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Castleton Festival, and Toby in 110 in the Shade, Snug in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Dr. Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory. Henry also covered the role of the Commentator in Derrick Wang’s opera Scalia/Ginsburg at the Chautauqua Opera Company in the summer of 2021. 

 

Henry has played piano since the age of 6. Highlights include a piano four-hands performance on the Rush Hour Concert Series in June 2021 which aired live on WFMT Chicago, and an upcoming performance of Dohnányi’s Sextet with musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in september 2025. Henry sang the role of Ottone in L’incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi with the MSM Undergraduate Opera Theater & Orchestra in May of 2023 just before graduating with his Bachelor’s degree in classical voice and the Hugh Ross Award. Henry won a Fellowship for a full ride to the Mostly Modern Festival in June 2023 and in July of the same year he was the youngest singer in the Opera and Song Programmes of the Verbier Academy’s Atelier Lyrique in Switzerland. There, he performed Keeper of the Madhouse in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.

 

In summer 2025, Henry is a young artist at Opera Neo in San Diego, CA and will be a fellow with the Tosti International Singing Academy in Folkestone, England led by Matthew Rose.