Composer and Baritone
Quinn Gutman is a Jewish transmasculine nonbinary composer, baritone, and gender affirming voice teacher.
Their song cycle, We Will Outlive Them...Letters to Rivka from Galicia, commissioned by soprano Jessica Bloch, premiered in May 2024, setting letters that Bloch's great grandmother, received in the US from her family in Galicia in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (modern-day Ukraine), during the country's rise of antisemitism before and during the world wars. In 2026, the cycle received an orchestral premiere by the Horizon Ensemble with an orchestration written by its director, Julian Gao. Quinn is currently collaborating with librettist and tenor Leo Balkovetz on an opera called Violetta, a reimagining Verdi's La Traviata set in New York City in 1989. In this opera, Violetta is a transwoman singer/songwriter who's HIV positive, and Alfredo, renamed to Alexander, is a transman freelance journalist from the Midwest who had run away from his evangelical family. Another project Quinn is working on is a suite of Emily Dickinson poetry for Quorum Boston called The (Real) Love Life of Emily Dickinson, setting these poems through a queer lens and sharing an aspect of Emily Dickinson's life that has been hidden away for over a century. Quinn has also written music for Transient Canvas, EnsembleNewSRQ, and SŌ Percussion.
Since 2022, Quinn has been teaching at singing and gender affirming voice. Most of Quinn's students are either beginner singers, or trans people who want to change their voice to one that's more reflective of who they are. Quinn teaches private lessons independently and at WholeTone Music Academy. They also teach classes at Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
Quinn Gutman has sung opera, musical theater, contemporary classical music, medieval music, experimental/improvisatory music, and indie folk. In August 2025, they performed in the pirate chorus in the Boston Summer Opera's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. In May 2023, Quinn sang the role of Anima in Quorum Boston's production of Hildegard von Bingen's opera Ordo Virtutum. In June 2022, they were set to play Mordred in the Lilac Player's production of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, but that got cancelled during the omicron variant of COVID-19. In September 2020, they performed their recital Correspondence: An Evening of Influential Letters, featuring pieces set from a real or fictional letters, or telling a story. Among these works were Libby Larson's Songs from Letters: Calamity Jane to her Daughter Janey, Judith Weir's King Herald’s Saga, and Virgilio Mortari's Divozione.
Quinn’s most famous work as a composer-performer is their A Cappella Arias, a collection of song settings from various poets, all sung a cappella. Included in the collection are “The Thing About Cats”, set from John L’Heureux, “Witness”, set from their own poem, “Letter,” set from Amy Lowell, and "App-les" set from Kelvyn Konig. In fall 2020, they wrote their first one-person show You Know Who You Are about their experiences coming out as nonbinary.
Quinn holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Oberlin Conservatory of Music where they studied with Lewis Nielson and Josh Levine. They hold a double masters in Vocal Performance and Composition at the Longy School of Music where they studied composition with Kate Pukinskis, Aaron Helgeson and Amy Beth Kirsten and voice with Corrine Byrne and Jeffrey Gavott.