John Mburu is a Kenyan-American Bass born in Warwick, Rhode Island. He was been praised for his, “Notable” and “Steadfast” portrayal of the Duke of Verona from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in the 2023 Glimmerglass Festival. Mburu has performed a variety of genres around the U.S. including opera, oratorio, musical theatre, cantata, concert works, and jazz. Mburu holds a Masters degree from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music where studied under Kenneth Shaw and received a bachelor from Lee University where he studied voice under Tony Deaton. Roles that Mburu has enjoyed portraying are Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro, Pope Urban VIII in Galileo Galilei, Pallante in Agrippina, Friar Laurent in Roméo et Juliette, Colline in La Bohéme, Parson in The Cunning Little Vixen, and Collations in The Rape of Lucretia. Mburu is a recent participant in Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s Gerdine Young Artist where he sang the role of Curio in Handel’s Julius Caesar and he is currently residing in Minneapolis where he is 2024-25 Resident Artist with Minnesota Opera.
