Biography
Liam Bonner draws on a successful ten-year career in performance, having earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Vocal Performance from Carnegie Mellon University and his Master of Music in Voice from the Manhattan School of Music. In his career as an artist, Bonner was praised by Opera News for his "rich, versatile voice" and "beautiful instrument", highlights of his performing career include his Metropolitan Opera debut as Morales in Carmen and the role of Horatio in Hamlet, which was one of the Metropolitan Opera's HD broadcasts that season. He created the role of Lieutenant Audebert in the Pulitzer Prize winning opera, Silent Night, with Minnesota Opera and reprised the role with Opera Philadelphia and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Bonner's repertoire includes a majority of Britten baritone roles including the title role in Billy Budd with LA Opera, directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by James Conlon, and Ned Keene in a concert version of Peter Grimes with the St Louis Symphony, performed at Carnegie Hall. He is very much at home in the French repertoire, performing such roles as Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande with the Opera Theatre of St Louis, Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles with New Orleans Opera, and the title role of Hamlet with Washington National Opera and conducted by Plácido Domingo. Liam enjoys a mostly stateside career, though notable international performances include Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with English National Opera in London, Henri de Valois in Chabrier's Le roi malgré lui with the Wexford Festival Opera in Wexford, Ireland, and The Elder Son in Britten's The Prodigal Son with Teatro dell'Opera Roma in Rome, Italy.
Bonner is a former member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, as well as San Francisco Opera's Merola Program and a Studio and Apprentice Artist at Central City Opera. He is the recipient of a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshanna Foundation, a first-prize winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition, a national semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and an award winner from the George London Foundation, the Lotte Lenya Competition, the First International Pavel Lisitsian Baritone Competition in Moscow, Russia, and the Houston Grand Opera's Eleanor McCollum Competition.
