Chinese bass-baritone Shen Yang will sing a night of old Chinese folk songs Friday at the Shenzhen Grand Theater.

Shen’s repertoire encompasses operatic roles, chamber music and Lieder recitals. He took inspiration from recordings of the German Lieder singer Hans Hotter. At the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he attended a master class given by soprano Renee Fleming. She arranged vocal coaching for him at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2007, and he went on to win the 2007 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

Subsequently, he entered the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and obtained an artist diploma from the Juilliard School. He gave the Juilliard’s 2009 Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital, in which he sang a program in tribute to Hotter, marking Hotter’s centenary. His debut at the Metropolitan Opera came in April 2009, as Masetto in “Don Giovanni.” He sang the role of Colline in “La Boheme” at the Met in February 2010.

Other awards he has won include a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2008, and Montblanc New Voices at Saint Petersburg’s White Nights Festival in 2010.

In 2011, he performed a recital of Chinese folk songs at the Shanghai Grand Theater, at which he declared his intention to promote that repertoire.

Noting confusion in the Western press over his surname as “Shen” or “Yang,” he sometimes uses “Shenyang” as his name outside China.

Time: 8 p.m., June 23

Tickets: 100-480 yuan

Venue: Shenzhen Grand Theater, 5018 Shennan Road East, Luohu District (罗湖区深南东路5018号深圳大剧院)

Metro: Line 1 or 2, Grand Theater Station (大剧院站), Exit B

(SD News)