Amy Owens
soprano
Amy Owens is known for her “high-flying vocals” and “scene-stealing” charisma (Opera News) on operatic and symphonic stages, as well as her innovative, multidisciplinary pursuits in music and entrepreneurship. Her performing career has taken her to some of America’s most beloved venues, including the Kennedy Center, where her fall 2019 debut as the soprano soloist in Carmina Burana under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda earned praise for “a perfect combination of purring, sensuous phrasing, and pure-toned innocence” (Washington Classical Review). A well-known favorite for Carmina Burana, she has soloed twice with the National Symphony, as well as with the Omaha Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, and MidAmerica Productions for her Carnegie Hall debut in 2017. She recently created the title role in Augusta Read Thomas’s Sweet Potato Kicks the Sun with Santa Fe Opera, sharing the stage with legendary beatboxer Nicole Paris in the first commission for the groundbreaking initiative “Opera for All Voices.”
In the 2021/2022 season, Amy made her debut with Chicago Opera Theater in Becoming Santa Claus under Lydia Yankovskaya and covered the roles of Controller and Tina in Dallas Opera’s production of Flight. She also appeared with the Dayton Philharmonic and Lubbock Symphony for performances of Messiah, as well as performances with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Florida Keys Concert Association. She kicks off the 2022 fall season performing Enrique Granados’s Canciones amatorias with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, followed by her main-stage debut with Virginia Opera as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance.
Other notable roles include Cunegonde in Candide with the Utah Symphony, where she was praised for her “dazzling array of vocal abilities” and “remarkable acting talent,” Johanna in Sweeney Todd with Michigan Opera Theater, and Florestine in On Site Opera’s North American premiere of La mére coupable, a notoriously difficult score that Owens was hailed as handling with “keen sensitivity,” “gleaming coloratura,” and “impressive accuracy and thrilling high notes” (Broadway World, Bachtrack, Musical America). Her affinity for new music also makes her a sought-after soprano for developing contemporary works, including the Metropolitan Opera workshop of Eurydice, and multiple workshops with American Opera Projects. She covered the role of Faustina in the world premiere of The Phoenix at Houston Grand Opera in 2019, sang as a last-minute replacement in Opera America’s 2016 New Opera Showcase at Trinity Church NYC, was featured in The Intimacy of Creativity Festival in Hong Kong in 2017, and has premiered art song frequently with the NYFOS Next series.
Amy was a resident artist with Utah Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Central City Opera, and was a grand-prize recipient of the Sullivan Foundation in 2014. She also holds awards from the Jensen Foundation (2019 finalist) and Metropolitan Opera National Council (Eastern Region finalist 2015). She is a multiple prizewinner with the George London Foundation and was a featured soloist on their recital series with Anthony Dean Griffey and Warren Jones in 2018.
As a multidisciplinary artist, Amy performed at the 50th annual New Orleans Jazz Festival with renowned musician Glen David Andrews in the Blues Tent in 2019, and as a budding conductor, she was selected to participate in the Hart Institute for Women Conductors at Dallas Opera and the International Conducting Workshop Festival in Bulgaria. She released two collaborative albums in 2019: a debut album of original music, HAETHOR, which received acclaim in the electronica world as “an enchanted force” (Impose), and Songs of Leonard Bernstein, including previously unrecorded vocal music. Other discography includes her performance as Mater Gloriosa in Utah Symphony’s recording of Mahler Symphony 8.
As an educator and producer, Amy co-founded The Collective Conservatory and developed a unique curriculum to forge new and innovative paths for online musical collaboration during the pandemic in 2020. She has also served as the artistic director and co-founder of Bel Canto Productions in Westwood, New Jersey, and production manager for Access Opera, two organizations with missions to increase accessibility and broaden the definition of opera for a wider audience. She developed a unique online education program for vocalists in 2021 called Vocal Revolution and maintains a robust online studio focusing on technique and vocal freedom. In 2022, she co-directed Opera Storytellers, a children’s day camp run through Santa Fe Opera, developing a groundbreaking process for youth to compose and perform an original opera in five days. She also produced a two-week festival for students from her private vocal studio, called Studio Fest, where she produced multiple concerts and conducted a scenes program in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Amy enjoys developing her interests as a multi-genre vocalist, producer, conductor, accordion player, dancer, yogi, educator, writer, composer, and wellness advocate. She holds an M.M. degree in vocal performance from Rice University and a B.M. in vocal performance from Brigham Young University.
