Tenor Aaron Short is currently pursuing a doctorate in musical arts at Northwestern University, where he recently performed the role of Fabian in the Chicago premiere of Jake Heggie’s If I Were You, as well as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème.
Before the pandemic, he joined Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited to sing the role of Dr. Osborn in the Chicago premiere of Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt and later joined Chicago Opera Theater as Alméric in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Flask in Heggie’s Moby Dick. In early 2019, he performed the role of Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with Knoxville Opera, later reprising the role with the Festival Lyrique-en-Mer for his European debut, followed by his Dallas Opera debut as First Armored Man in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
Other opera credits include his joint company and role debut with Nashville Opera as Sam in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, as well as with Opera Theater Oregon as President Theodore Roosevelt in Two Yosemites, a new opera composed by Justin Ralls.
Recent concert engagements included debuts with the Racine Symphony as tenor soloist in the Mozart Requiem, as tenor soloist in the University of Wisconsin-Parkside’s mounting of Handel’s Messiah in 2017 and 2021, and with the Northwest Indiana Symphony in its concert program Showboat and Showtunes.
He has fulfilled a young artist residency with Portland Opera, where he made his critically acclaimed role debut as Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and appeared as Ferrando in the company’s 2017 production of Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte. He also apprenticed with Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera, where he performed the Steuermann in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, as well as Lockwood in Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights, a production that the company documented on the opera’s first-ever commercial recording.
He was an apprentice artist for two summers with the Santa Fe Opera, where he appeared as the First Prisoner in Beethoven’s Fidelio and the Fourth Jew in Strauss’ Salome. He also fulfilled residencies with Chautauqua Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Lyric Opera Studio Weimar and Opera of the Ozarks.
Short is an alumnus of Wichita State University and Manhattan School of Music, where his performance in the role of Jimmy Mahoney in Kurt Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny was hailed by the New York Times as "simultaneously subtle and shattering.” He is the recipient of several honors, most notably a 2018 George London Foundation Award and a Grant Award from the Santa Fe Opera.
