Ethiopian-American baritone, Yonathan Astatke, is a native of Kansas City, MO. He is a rising interpreter of operatic and musical theater repertoire with a variety of credits to his name. Yonathan has experienced success at a number of voice competitions across America, most notably earning Second Place in the Midwest Region of The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and First Place at Opera Mississippi’s John Alexander National Voice Competition in the musical theater category. Yonathan will be singing the role of Gabriel von Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus with the Turner-Fischer Center for Opera at LSU along with debuting with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra as part of their Classical Christmas series. Roles include Gianni Schicchi (Gianni Schicchi), Billy Bigelow (Carousel), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), The D’Ysquith Family (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), Demitrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), and Ford (Falstaff). He was a member of the Tomita Young Artist Program at Finger Lakes Opera and the Opera Saratoga Festival Artist Program in 2024 and 2023, respectively. Yonathan is currently in the final year of his graduate studies at LSU in the studio of Robert Grayson and Paul Groves. He is an alum of the University of Missouri, Columbia.