Music Concert featuring Tenor, James Kryshak and Pianist, Yasuko Oura

JAMES KRYSHAK, Tenor, assisted by YASUKO OURA, Pianist, will present the third concert in the 2010-11 North Shore Unitarian Church Concert Series. The pair will offer songs by Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Benjamin Britten and Francis Poulenc. Admission is free but a donation is requested.

A native of Baldwinsville, NY, James Kryshak, made his professional opera debut in 2008 as Don Ottavio in Raylynmor Opera’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Other opera roles include; Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia; Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, Camille in The Merry Widow, Frederik in Pirates of Penzance, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande, and the Prince in Opera For the Young’s 2009 production of Rusalka. 

A winner in both District (2008, 2009) and Regional (2009) levels of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, James sang on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera as a National Semi-Finalist in February 2009.  He has also been a Finalist in the Ferruccio Tagliavini International Vocal Competition in Deutschlandsberg, Austria (April 2005) as well as a Semi-Finalist in the Klassik Mania Competition in Vienna (July 2005).  

Currently, James is a member of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.  For the 2010-11 Lyric Opera Season, he will be seen as; Snout in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Joe in La fanciulla del West, Amelia’s Servant in Un ballo in maschera, and the Second Nobleman in Lohengrin.

James holds a Master’s of Music Degree in Opera Performance from the University of Wisconsin Madison where he was the recipient of the Wisconsin Distinguished Voice Excellence Fellowship (2008-09) and studied with Julia Faulkner and William Farlow.  He also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Music (Voice) and German from Elmhurst College (Elmhurst, IL). Further studies have included two years of vocal study in Vienna with Michele Friedman, an apprenticeship with Des Moines Metro Opera in 2009 and a vocalist in the Tyrolean Opera Program in 2006 under the direction of Elizabeth Bachman.