Winner of a 2008 Sullivan Foundation grant and a finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, American soprano Kiera Duffy is recognized for both her gleaming high soprano and insightful musicianship, and is enjoying a flourishing concert and operatic career in repertoire that spans from Handel and Praetorius to the new sounds of Elliott Carter and John Zorn.

Kiera Duffy opens the 2008-09 season with her New York Philharmonic debut in Pierre Boulez’s Pli selon pli: Improvisation II sur Mallarmé under the baton of music director Lorin Maazel and goes on to sing György Ligeti’s seminal works, Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures, for her first performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She debuts at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in Carmina Burana with music director Andreas Delfs, and joins the Pacific Symphony Orchestra as soprano soloist in Messiah before returning to the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra for that same work. She sings her first Bach Mass in b minor with the Ft. Smith Symphony, and returns to the early music ensemble, Apollo’s Fire, for performances and a recording of Handel’s music written for the British monarchy. On the operatic stage, Duffy will be seen as Queen Tye in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten for her Atlanta Opera debut, and Elvira in L’Italiana in Algeri for Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Kiera Duffy began the 2007-08 season with performances of Despina in Così fan tutte and Tebaldo in Don Carlo with Patricia Racette, Johan Botha, and James Morris at the Tanglewood Music Festival – both under the baton of James Levine. Of her Despina, Opera News Magazine said she “stole the show with smooth, expert comic skills and impeccable singing, at once stylish and full of verve.” In her native Pennsylvania, she sang in the bicentennial celebration concert for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at the Kimmel Center and returned to Opera Company of Philadelphia as the Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel before performing Praetorius’s Christmas Vespers with Apollo’s Fire and Messiah with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. She debuted at Opera Naples in Così fan tutte and at Tulsa Opera as Ellen in Lakmé. Concert appearances included a return to the Palm Beach Symphony for Beethoven Mass in C, debuts with both the California Symphony and the Reno Philharmonic as soprano soloist in Carmina Burana, and an evening of chamber music by Ravel and Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Metropolis Ensemble at New York’s newest destination: The Times Center. She concluded the season with her return to Opera Theatre of St. Louis as Ghita in Vicente Martín y Soler’s rarely performed opera Una Cosa Rara.

In the previous seasons, Kiera Duffy was seen at Tanglewood in the U.S. staged premiere of Carter’s opera What Next?, conducted by James Levine and recently released on DVD. Critics called her singing “virtuosic” (New York Times), “silvery” (Boston Globe), and “gleaming” (The New Yorker). She has performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Utah Symphony, Omaha Symphony, and the Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra for her Carnegie Hall debut. Her varied repertoire has taken Duffy to New York City Opera’s VOX Showcase for John Zorn’s monodrama La Machine de l’Être, the Spoleto Festival USA for Pascal Dusapin’s To God, Arizona Opera as Fatmé in Grétry’s Zémire et Azor, and to the Washington University Liederabend Series for a recital featuring Schumann’s Dichterliebe and works by Schoenberg and Berg.

Born in Philadelphia, Kiera Duffy was an accomplished pianist before pursuing singing and holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College. She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognition from such esteemed organizations as the Metropolitan Opera National Council, the Philadelphia Orchestra Greenfield Competition, the Young Concert Artists International Competition, and Astral Artistic Services. As a member of Central City Opera’s Bonfils-Stanton Young Artist Program and Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s Gerdine Young Artist Program, Ms. Duffy covered the roles of Gilda (Rigoletto), Madame Mao (Nixon in China) and Elvira (L’italiana in Algeri), in addition to performing the roles of the Lay Sister in Suor Angelica, Fatmé in Zémire et Azor, and Isabel and Madeline in Henry Mollicone’s The Face on the Barroom Floor. Opera Theatre of St. Louis awarded her the Richman Memorial Award in 2004 and, in 2005, a special MacAllister Award honoring the memory of Susannah Kilmer.

kiera duffy. soprano.