“A wild and anxious ride”

-Star Tribune

 “A wild and anxious ride”(Star Tribune) - multi-genre baritone Justin Anthony Spenner is known for their captivating work that runs the gamut of opera, chamber music, experimental music, pop, and metal.

It’s not really me on stage I swear.

  • Mephistopheles: Faust (adaptation): Mephistopheles/Depeche Mode Cover Band (Mixed Precipitation)

  • Gianni Schicchi: Gianni Schicchi (American Gothic Performing Arts Festival

  • Danilo: Die Lustige Witwe; Boni: Die Csárdásfürstin ((Opera on the Lake)

  • Tarquinius: The R*pe of Lucretia; Various Identities: DIVAS & DRAG (An Opera Theatre)

  • Schaunard: La Bohème (Theater Latte Da)

  • Father: The Golden Ass; Tiffany Skidmore (World Premiere; 113 Composers and Center for 21st Century Music)

Chamber music is abundant:

  • Norse/Norge (Recital, Edvard Grieg Society of MN);

  • Bach: Motets and Magnificat (Bach Society of MN)

  • Various: DIVAS & DRAG (An Opera Theatre)

  • Joshua Musikantow: Yiddish is my Homeland ( World Premiere)

  • Richard Barret: CODEX XXIII & XXIV (World Premiere)

  • Steven Takasugi: Das Fliegenpapier/Strange Autumn

    • and Dietrich Schnebel: Maulwerke (all 113 Composers)

  • Bach: Coffee Cantata and Handel: Apollo e Dafne (Le Grande Bande)

Justin's self-produced work addresses mental illness, human connection, and inherited trauma. This includes their 10+ years of tinkering with Schubert's Die Winterreise through various practices, including dance, film, and meditation. Along with Joey Crane, they produce the podcast Is This Music?!?!, which features chats with local and international performers and composers. They have two bands, the sub-genreless metal band (ab)scheid, and the Norwegian cover band, Near Norse. As if that wasn't enough, Justin is a Teaching Artist with An Opera Theatre's Opera Immersion program and teaches a small clutch of interesting singers.    

Collaborative Self-Production is key to the work:

  • Schubert: Winterreise (in many, many forms)

    • Dance, projections, moveable objects, and audience interaction (Nautilus Music-Theater)

    • In the crook of a piano, in a serene and profound spiritual space (Hamline UMC, Northfield First UCC)

    • For film, dance, multiple movers, and prerecorded recital because the world ended (Online; multiple producers, editors, artists)

    • Using elements of all of those things at once in a small blackbox theater but also with interactive elements and wandering galore (Hive Collaborative)

  • (ab)scheid: Earthroot I & II; Demo; Trio

  • Recital: Like Sun Through Eyelids

  • Recital: Norse/Norge (expanded from the Grieg Society program)

  • Series: B-Sides Art Song (going strong, spreading song to a gallery, coffee shop, record store, whatever near you)