Sarah Wolfson, Soprano

First Prize, 2007 CAG Competition

www.sarahwolfson.com

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Lyric soprano Sarah Wolfson is the First Prize Winner of the 2007 Concert Artists Guild International Competition.  With infectious energy and innate musicality that have earned her praise from The Washington Post for “working magic,” Ms. Wolfson possesses a remarkable ability to communicate with audiences on recital, orchestral, cabaret and operatic stages. 

Current performance highlights include a recital for Market Square Concerts (featuring the premiere of a new song cycle composed for her by Paul Moravec, Jake Heggie and Jeremy Gill, with texts written by series founder Lucy Miller Murray), an all-Kurt Weill program at Cafè Sabarsky in New York’s Neue Galerie and four performances celebrating music of American composers on the renowned Lunchtime Concert series at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre.  In its review of one of these engagements, The New York Times declared: “Ms. Wolfson sang with luminous sound and impressively focused high notes.” With orchestra, she is a featured soloist for Beethoven’ Symphony No. 9 with the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.

Ms. Wolfson recently made recital debuts at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (on the CAG Winners series) and at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall (as winner of The Juilliard School’s Vocal Arts Recital Debut).  Other featured recitals include Columbia University’s Italian Academy, the International Performing Arts Series at the University of Missouri/St. Louis, Miami Museum of Contemporary Art and the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC.  Recent oratorio appearances include Schubert’s Mass in E-flat at Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Brahms’ Requiem with The Columbia University Orchestra and excerpts from Handel’s Messiah at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall, and she was also featured performing Berio’s Folk Songs with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.    

An avid performer of new music, Sarah Wolfson created the role of Celia in the world premiere of John Musto’s Volpone, a comic opera based on Ben Johnson’ 16th-century satirical play, commissioned and presented by the Wolf Trap Opera Company.  Making her Off-Broadway debut, Ms. Wolfson created and recorded the role of Jane/Aeola in The New Group’s world premiere production of Wallace and Allen Shawn’s play/opera, The Music Teacher, recently released on CD by Bridge Records.

In 2006 she developed and performed Love Past Cure, a new opera based on Monteverdi madrigals interwoven with Shakespeare sonnets, with the International Sejong Soloists as part of La Jolla SummerFest.  Recent summer festival appearances include the opening of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival and collaborative recitals with the Brasil Guitar Duo at Chautauqua and at the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival.  Ms. Wolfson also participated in the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and she recently sang Ravel's Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé as part of the Aspen Stravinsky Rex Minifestival.

In the opera house, Ms. Wolfson recently performed the role of Despina in Cosi fan tutte with Aspen Opera Theater to critical acclaim, and other roles include Bacchis in Offenbach’s La belle Hélène and Zerlina (cover) in Don Giovanni at The Santa Fe Opera, her debut with Kentucky Opera as Crobyle in Thaïs, Poppea in L’incoronazione di Poppea with Opera North, Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Wolf Trap Opera Company, Priestess in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with Spoleto Festival USA and Anne in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with the Brevard Music Festival.  As a member of the Florida Grand Opera Young Artists Program, Ms. Wolfson performed the roles of Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone, and Micaela in La Tragédie de Carmen.

Sarah Wolfson earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees as a student of Cynthia Hoffman at The Juilliard School.  She is featured on the PBS American Masters documentary The Juilliard Experience, and she received the William Schuman Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music, the highest award given to a Juilliard graduate student.  She is currently studying in New York with Edith Bers.

Ms. Wolfson is on the faculty of Columbia University, where she teaches vocal performance, and is a member of Sing for Hope, a non-profit organization founded by opera singers that links artists and charities.  Through Sing for Hope she has worked closely with Bent on Learning, which brings yoga and meditation to underserved students in New York City Public Schools.