Marc Abbott

Biography

Marc Abbott, baritone, grew up singing in church choirs in Phoenix, Arizona (not completely willingly, at first…). After starting his Plebe - a.k.a. Freshman - year as a cadet of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he successfully auditioned for the West Point Glee Club as a means of getting out of afternoon parade practice. With the Glee Club, he sang in venues such as Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan and recorded the album Stand Ye Steady: Songs of Courage and Inspiration (2005). After changing majors to Information Technology, there wasn’t enough time for singing and graduating, so his major took precedence for a few years while he studied computer science and cybersecurity - culminating in a 2009 victory over Navy during the Cyber Defense Exercise and an appearance on the front page of the New York Times. He then graduated from the Academy with a Bachelor of Science and received a commission as an officer in the United States Army in 2009.

After completing military service, he moved to the Washington, DC area and began performing with the Northern Virginia Institute Choir of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In more than one performance, after an unknown audience member approached him to ask if he’d been taking voice lessons, he decided to pursue solo voice studies in 2013. A fellow choir member introduced him to Dr. Harry Dunstan of the American Center for Puccini Studies, and he performed in multiple operas over the years with the Center, including Baron Pictordu in Viardot’s Cendrillon, Guglielmo Wulf in Puccini’s Le Villi and Michele in Il tabarro (and as Scarpia in a cancelled production of Tosca), The magistrate and the title role in multiple productions of Thomas Pasatieri’s Signor Deluso, and Herr Colas Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne. He also won the role of St. Thomas in the 2014 production of Savior of the World at the Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center, reprising the role in 2015. Despite the busy life of a software engineer, Marc has also developed into a true Verdi Baritone with an impressive range and a pronounced squillo; he regularly sing whole roles from Verdi’s repertoire during private lessons.

His technical work has kept him busy over the years, working at multiple levels for the US Federal Government as a civilian and contractor, and then relocating to Utah in 2021. He loves cooking Italian food from scratch, using the old world methods; he loves rock climbing; he’s a world traveler, having visited 11 countries on three continents; and he’s slowly catching up on all those languages opera singers are supposed to learn.

He met Jacquelyn Abbott (née Mouritsen) - herself a trained classical singer - in 2017, married her in 2019, and they’ve been singing together ever since.