Mary Wilson, Soprano

Soprano Mary Wilson is acknowledged as one of today's most exciting young artists.  Cultivating a wide-ranging career singing chamber music, oratorio and operatic repertoire, her “bright soprano seems to know no terrors, wrapping itself seductively around every phrase.” (Dallas Morning News)  She continues to receive critical acclaim from coast to coast:  “The discovery was Mary Wilson, a fine lyric soprano with focused, lustrous tone and sterling enunciation,” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) “Her fast passages were flawless in intonation and seemingly easy in execution (the mark of a first-rate technique), and “Her feel for the sound and meaning of words was impeccable; her mastery of Handel’s grand leaps and wide-ranging runs was total.” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

During the 2008 – 2009 season, Ms. Wilson returns to the Cleveland Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah, which she will also sing with the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  She performs Carmina Burana with the Detroit Symphony for Leonard Slatkin’s inaugural performance as the new Music Director of the Orchestra, Hadyn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Southwest Florida Symphony, and Mozart’s Requiem as well as Bach’s Cantata No. 51 with the National Philharmonic, and Haydn’s Salve Regina and Fajer’s Missa de Los Angeles with Musica Angelica.  With the Iris Orchestra Ms. Wilson sings Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate and a world premiere song cycle by Ned Rorem,and with the Kansas City Symphony and Nicholas McGegan she will sing a repeat concert of Mendelssohn Lobgesang and selections from Beethoven’s Leonore of which the Minneapolis Star Tribune said “Mary Wilson stole the scene as the soubrette Marzelline”.  In addition, Ms. Wilson will join the Florida Bach Festival for Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Bach’s Easter Oratorio, and Brahm’s German Requiem, the Los Angeles Master Chorale for Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the Ethos Chamber Orchestra for Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate and Mozart’s Requiem, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra for Ravel’s Sheherazade, and with the American Bach Soloists she will sing Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and virtuoso Handel duets in celebration of their 20th Anniversary Season.

Ms. Wilson’s appearances for the 2007-2008 season included debuts with Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, and Florida Bach Festival for Carmina Burana; and the Portland Symphony for Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.  She returned for a program of Mendelssohn and Beethoven to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with Nicholas McGegan, and she sang the Fauré Requiem with St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Labadie, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream with The Cleveland Orchestra and the Bach B-Minor Mass with Los Angeles Master Chorale and Grant Gershon.  Ms. Wilson also sang Queen Isabella in Soler’s Una Cosa Rara at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, for which Saint Louis Post-Dispatch proclaimed that “Silvery-voiced soprano Mary Wilson is a royally ditzy Queen Isabella, with exquisite comic timing and a flawless vocal line.”

She recently created the role of Grand Duchess Christina in the world premiere performances of Philip Glass’ Galileo Galilei in both Chicago and New York, where Opera News lauded Ms. Wilson’s talent, saying “surely Glass intends for all of his singers to reflect the vocal lines as naturally as she does.”  Ms. Wilson created the role of the Controller in the North American premiere performances of Dove’s Flight at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.  She sang her first Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with Dayton Opera and the Goddess Diana in Rameau’s Hippolytus and Aricia at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.