Louisville, Kentucky native, tenor Dylon Crain has had a lifelong association with Kentucky Opera, performing over twenty productions as an ensemble member and comprimario singer in roles such as Postiglione in La fanciulla del West, the Newspaper Collector in A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Younger Brother in Dead Man Walking. As an associate artist with Kentucky Opera, Dylon co-presented an educational program, “The Science of Singing” for K-12 schools in Jefferson County. Similarly, he is an educational outreach artist for Cincinnati Opera, where he helps to curate and present an opera storybook-based educational program for elementary and public schools in Kentucky. Dylon was recently a Studio Artist at Opera Maine, where he sang the role of Paul in Gareth William’s Rocking Horse Winner and covered Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola.
Dylon’s mainstage credits include the roles of Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Basilio/Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Martin in The Tender Land, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Captian Silvio/Pasquin in Le docteur miracle, Little Bat in Susannah, and more.
As a concert soloist, Dylon is highly sought after as the swan in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and frequently performs major works such as J. S. Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium, W. A. Mozart’s Requiem, and G. F. Handel’s Messiah. Dylon has been an ensemble member and soloist with groups such as The Artefact Ensemble, Louisville Chamber Choir, Bourbon Baroque, Kentucky Bach Choir, and the Louisville Master Chorale.
As a student at the University of Louisville, Dylon was deeply engaged in the realm of new music through the Grawemeyer Award and the New Music Festival. As a member of the New Music Ensemble, he collaborated closely with composers like Kaija Saariaho, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Bent Sørensen, Brett Dean, and David Dzubay. A passionate advocate for new music, Dylon has commissioned works and premiered compositions by composers such as James May, Cullyn Murphy, Alex Berko, and Brittany Green. Dylon served as the tenor soloist in Mammoth, a new piece with the Louisville Orchestra featuring Davóne Tines and Yo-Yo Ma, as part of Ma’s series Our Common Nature. This original composition by Teddy Abrams, the Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra, explored the history of Kentucky’s only national park via a cantata, incorporating poetic meditations from three writers associated with Kentucky—Robert Penn Warren, Wendell Berry, and Ada Limón.
Recent performances include Harlekin in Victor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with the Louisville Orchestra and Tommaso in A Nation of Others by Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell with the University of Kentucky Opera Theater. Upcoming performances include Carmina Burana with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra and Mozart’s Requiem with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra.
Dylon was a two-time winner of the KANM spiritual competition, was the winner of the University of Louisville aria competition, has numerous first-place awards at NATS conventions, and was the first-place winner of both the transfer and graduate categories of the Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition.
Dylon is finishing his MM in Vocal performance as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Kentucky, where he assists in teaching art song literature and applied lessons. He is also a Visiting Instructor in Voice at Berea College and maintains a private studio in Lexington. His students have gone on to work in fields ranging from the public school system as music educators to Broadway tours as performers. Dylon resides in Lexington with his wife, collaborative pianist Paige Crain, with whom he frequently performs in recitals. As a certified nurseryman, he has planted over 200 trees in Kentucky.