Baritone With a Basketball: How Justin Austin Brings an Athlete's Mindset to Music

Classical Post® is created and produced by⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠⁠⁠⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can⁠⁠⁠ ⁠grow your audience⁠⁠⁠⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by⁠⁠ ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠⁠⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can⁠⁠ ⁠grow your audience⁠⁠⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by⁠ ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can⁠ ⁠grow your audience⁠⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can ⁠grow your audience⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by ⁠⁠⁠Gold Sound Media⁠⁠⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can ⁠⁠⁠grow your audience⁠⁠⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by ⁠⁠Gold Sound Media⁠⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can ⁠⁠grow your audience⁠⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can ⁠grow your audience⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Classical Post® is created and produced by ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠® LLC, a leading New York marketing agency serving the performing arts industry. Explore how we can ⁠grow your audience⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

Few faces in classical music are more recognizable right now than that of Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä — not because of his sculptural good looks and piercing blue eyes, but because he's quickly become one of today's most popular conductors.  At just 28 years old, Mäkelä has already racked up an impressive résumé, including his current roles as music director of the Orchestre de Paris, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, and chief-conductor designate of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. But despite his face adorning posters plastered on concert hall facades across Europe, Mäkelä doesn't want to be the center of attention. When he's on the podium, he'd much rather you focus on the composers whose works he brings to life. Music lovers in North America will have several opportunities to hear Mäkelä's prodigious talents this month, when he and the Orchestre de Paris embark on a tour of Montreal, Boston, Ann Arbor, and New York, where the young conductor will make his highly anticipated Carnegie Hall debut conducting Stravinsky's Firebird ballet and the volcanic Rite of Spring — two works Mäkelä and the orchestra recorded and released to critical acclaim on Decca Classics in 2023. In this episode, Mäkelä and I talk more about the upcoming tour and what he's most looking forward to when he steps onto the stage of Carnegie Hall. Plus, he shares how the visual arts inspire his artistry, the 18th-century composer he'd love to play chamber music with, and the importance of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's music during his childhood. — Classical Post® is created and produced by ⁠Gold Sound Media⁠® LLC, a New York-based marketing agency for the performing arts industry. Explore how we can ⁠grow your audience⁠ to make a lasting impact in your community.

When Justin Austin isn't singing at the Metropolitan Opera, Kennedy Center, or Lincoln Center Theater, you're likely to find him shooting hoops on the basketball court. Sports have been a lifelong passion for the young baritone, but it's more than the game's physical benefits that keep him reaching for a basketball. To Austin, cultivating the mindset of an athlete has consistently helped him reach new heights as an artist. "A basketball coach once told me that discipline means doing all the things that are hard and that you don't like to do, but doing them as if you love it," he says on the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast.  "That's helped me in my work ethic and my discipline within my musical career. When I encounter any kind of discomfort or difficulty learning my music or translating or memorizing, I just try to fall in love with the process, the repetition, dancing the words and the music. I find different creative ways to get the score in my body, so that it lives within me and comes out of me organically." That approach to practice and role preparation has helped Austin land repeat engagements on some of classical music's biggest stages — including Carnegie Hall, where, on March 5, he's presenting a recital with pianist Howard Watkins. Part of Carnegie Hall's ongoing festival, Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice, this recital — titled "Don't Be Angry!" — presents music by five composers written over the course of a century, from selections from Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera to the New York premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's Marvin Gaye Songs, which Gordon composed for Austin.  In this episode, Austin and I talk more about his upcoming recital and how he hopes the program helps audience members become more comfortable with feelings of anger and hopelessness during turbulent times. Plus, he shares what it was like to return to the Metropolitan Opera stage after pandemic lockdowns, why opera singers should spend time honing their acting skills, and the OutKast album he would need with him if stranded on a desert island. — Classical Post®is created and produced by Gold Sound Media® LLC, a New York-based marketing agency for the performing arts industry. Explore how we can grow your audience to make a lasting impact in your community.