Blake Austin Brooks, Bass-Baritone, has been active in the sacred, classical, and operatic music scenes of NYC and the Hudson Valley for the past twelve years.  

In the 2024-2025 season Blake appeared in the Madison Sounds Concert series as the bass soloist in Mozart's Coronation Mass, Haydn's Creation, Mozart's Great Mass in C and as the title character in three concert presentations of highlights from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. During the 2023-2024 season he appeared with the Bard Summerscape opera chorus in the first major American production of Saint-Saens’ Henri VIII, Opera On Tap/Kinesis Project’s Capacity, or: The Work of Crackling (reprised from the premiere performances in 2022), as well as OoT’s Friday the 13th Halloween show, Broken Chord at Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Dvořák’s Requiem with the American Symphony Orchestra. He also sang on the Deutsche Grammaphon recording of Aaron Zigman’s Émigré with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, as well as the work’s U.S. premiere with the NY Philharmonic. Last season Blake sang the role of Fourth Shepherd in Strauss’ Daphne, presented by the ASO at Carnegie Hall, joined the Brooklyn Conservatory Chorale as the bass soloist in Mozart’s Requiem, was baritone soloist in Faure’s Requiem at Grace Church NYC, and bass soloist in Bach’s Cantata 115 with Cornerstone Chorale.  Other 2022-23 season highlights included making his debut with the NY Philharmonic Chorus at the gala reopening of David Geffen Hall, joining Maestro Joe Hisaishi at Radio City Music Hall for a 5-performance run of “Symphonic Concert: Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki”, performing in concert with Downtown Voices at Trinity Church Wall Street.

In previous seasons Blake sang with the Center for Contemporary Opera in their concert debut of Hester, was baritone soloist in Ralph Vaughn Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem with the Bard Chamber Singers and The Orchestra Now, performed the role of The Stoker in Tsar’s Bride at Bard Musical Festival, and has served as bass soloist for several masses and oratorios with Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, The American Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Andrew Music Society. Blake has also performed with American Lyric Theater/MasterVoices in their operatic workshop productions of The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, and The Halloween Tree, and with PROTOTYPE Festival in their workshop production of Mila, Great Sorcerer.

After moving from Cherokee, Iowa, where he first took to the stage in leading roles of numerous musical theatre classics, and studied with Dr. Donald Simonson and the internationally renowned Simon Estes, Blake made his NYC debut in Vertical Player Repertory’s production of The Dwarf. Highlights of his seasons since then include performing in productions of The Magic Flute with New York Opera Exchange, Big Jim and the Small-Time Investors and Bobby with The Center for Contemporary Opera, singing the role of Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and making his Kennedy Center debut in Noli Me Tangere. He has also sung with the opera chorus at Bard SummerScape for a number of productions, in addition to making appearances at the Bard Music Festival, and has worked with the National Yiddish Theatre-Folkbiene in a concert version of Di Goldene Kale.