Fall Career Advancement Award featuring Eric McConnell

Celebrate the artistry of bass-baritone Eric McConnell, joined by acclaimed pianist Daniel Brink, in this year’s Fall Career Advancement Award Concert. This special afternoon performance showcases extraordinary talent and the promise of an exciting musical career ahead.

About Eric McConnell:

Denver native Eric J. McConnell is quickly garnering acclaim in the American opera and musical theatre communities for his distinctive dramatic voice and theatrical, performative style. Highlights of his 2025–2026 season include a company debut with Painted Sky Opera in his second outing as the Sodbuster in Missy Mazzoli’s haunting American masterpiece Proving Up and a return to the razor’s edge as the title role of Sweeney Todd in a semi-staged production with the Colorado Springs Chorale. He will round out the holiday season with another reprise, this time as Bob Wallace in Irving Berlin’s White Christmas with Green Glass Productions at the Butte Theatre in Cripple Creek. He then dives back into the world of 21st-century American opera—and Victorian serial killers—as John Cree in Elizabeth Cree for Opera Today’s inaugural season.

Previous seasons have seen professional debuts with Opera Saratoga as the D’Ysquith Family in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder; Sarasota Opera as Leporello in Don Giovanni, Shreveport Opera as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte; Virginia Opera as Sam in Trouble in Tahiti, Donner in Das Rheingold, Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro, and Colline in La bohème; Opera Fort Collins as Olin Blitch in Susannah and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro; Opera San Luis Obispo as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast; Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre as Betto in Gianni Schicchi/Buoso’s Ghost and Orin Scrivello, DDS in Little Shop of Horrors; Union Avenue Opera as Carl-Magnus in A Little Night Music, Father in Ragtime, and the Wolf in Into the Woods; the Greenhouse Cabaret as the title character in Sweeney Todd; Opera Colorado as Figaro/Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro, Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, and Dr. Grenvil in La traviata; Vegas City Opera as the Vicomte de Valmont in The Dangerous Liaisons; Central City Opera as Ceprano in Rigoletto, William Jennings Bryan in The Ballad of Baby Doe, and Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro; the Aspen Music Festival as the Sodbuster in Proving Up; Breckenridge Backstage Theatre as Inspector Kemp/The Monster in Young Frankenstein; the Albany Symphony Orchestra as Elisha Fitzgibbon in Roscoe; the Missouri Symphony/Landlocked Opera as Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro; Bel Cantanti Opera as Escamillo in Carmen; and the Suncoast Broadway Dinner Theatre as Bob Wallace in White Christmas.

McConnell is a two-time regional finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has placed several times in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild’s annual competition. He holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami. McConnell is an Eagle Scout, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and a zealous collector of rubber ducks. He is also a writer of dystopian fiction—his debut novel, Mall, and its sequels, Park and Ship, are available at all major online book retailers. He will be accompanied in November by Daniel Brink.

Sponsors of Fall Career Advancement Award: Robyn Hamilton and Grant Langdon. Additional sponsors for this program: Nicole de Naray, Joseph Finkbeiner IMO Dawn Eiber-Thurmond, Victoria Hansen, Lynne Lange, Gwynethe Miller, Patricia and Lonny Randle.

About the Pikes Peak Opera League

Pikes Peak Opera League's mission is to promote knowledge and appreciation of opera, musical theatre and vocal arts, to encourage and support aspiring and professional opera and musical theatre artists, and to support Opera Theatre of the Rockies and other regional opera, classical and vocal arts organizations.

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