Patrice Michaels

Cedille recording artist soprano/composer Patrice Michaels is a vocal virtuoso and an eclectic musical personality. Her work in opera, oratorio, and chamber music and her distinctive dramatic concerts rank her as “A formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), possessing “a voice that is light, rich and flexible” (Opera News), with “pinpoint-accurate…bravura” (Boston Globe). “Like the Romantic ideal of art, Patrice Michaels’ voice is both natural and passionate” says Classical CD Digest, demonstrating “poise, musicianship and impressive fioratura” (Los Angeles Times). Patrice’s diverse projects establish her as a truly unique artist and one of the finest American sopranos of her generation.

Ms. Michaels has sung Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Robert Shaw, Mahler’s 4th Symphony with Zdenek Macal, Mozart Arias with Andrew Parrott and Nicolas McGegan, Carmina Burana with Joanne Falletta, and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Andreas Delfs and Victor Yampolsky. Other concert appearances include the Shanghai, Czech National, St. Louis, Omaha, Atlanta, Phoenix, Milwaukee, and Minnesota Orchestras; the Maryland Handel Festival; Dallas Bach Society; and Charlotte, Kansas City, and Virginia Symphonies, and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque.

Ms. Michaels’s made her debut with the Cleveland Opera as Marzelline in Fidelio. Her operatic credits include Lyric Opera of Chicago, Central City Opera; Tacoma Opera; The Banff Centre, Canada; New York’s Concert Royal and Heartbeat Opera; and Chicago Opera Theater, with which she recorded the role of Monica in Menotti’s The Medium.

Recital appearances include three seasons at the Festival of Contemporary Music in Havana, Cuba and tours of Japan, and much of Central American. She has sung with pianist John Browning for Music at the Supreme Court, as guest artist with the Chicago Chamber Musicians and Trio Chicago & Friends, for the Schubert Club of St. Paul, and for many academic institutions including Pomona College, Northwestern University, and Harvard. Patrice has been invited as guest artist and clinician to The Hartt School of Music (Hartford, CT), Tel Aviv’s Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Dreyfoos School of The Arts (West Palm Beach, FL) and Instituto Superior de Arte (Havana, Cuba).

Patrice also writes music with words, frequently centering on themes of social justice and American history. “Un viaje en la canción/A Journey in Song” is her newest song cycle, featuring five different poets, each piece through-composed in both Spanish and English. THE LONG VIEW: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs has received significant critical acclaim and forms the basis of the nationally touring stage show “Notorious RBG in Song.”  Michaels’ choral work, “Refuge” debuted at the Kennedy Center in July 2019 and is published by GIA.  A joint commission by The National Constitution Center, Lyric Fest of Philadelphia and Musicians Club of Women supported RESOLVED: Songs of Women’s Suffrage and the 19^th Amendment, debuting in 2020 as an NBC/Peacock video featuring mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Other works by Michaels include incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a one-act opera on Euripides’ The Trojan Women, and the children’s show A Song for Harmonica. She is currently writing an opera on legal pioneer, priest and poet Pauli Murray.

A native of Southern California, Patrice Michaels holds BAs in Music and Theater from Pomona College; an MFA in Voice from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and a certificate from the Music Theatre Studio Ensemble at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. Formerly Professor of Music at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and Director of Vocal Studies at The University of Chicago, Patrice now teaches in the Voice/Opera Program at the Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University. Patrice has received consistent critical acclaim for her many recordings and can be heard singing on the Albany, Amadis, Cedille, Decca, and Neos labels.      

— patricemichaels.com