Praised by Opera (UK) as “...the most opulent female sound on the stage...” young mezzo-soprano Kimberly Sogioka is drawing much attention as an exciting artist on the operatic and concert stage. Ms. Sogioka’s 2014-15 engagements include Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and Siébel in Faust with Michigan Opera Theatre, Carmen in scenes from Carmen with the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and workshops of Bruce Wolosoff’s The Great Good Thing and Sarah Mattox’s Heart Mountain.

 

A frequent collaborator with composers in new music projects, Ms. Sogioka created the role of Nurse 3 in the Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera workshop of Michael Torke’s Senna, and was a mezzo soloist in the Metropolitan Opera workshop of Scott Wheeler’s The Sorrow’s of Frederick, and has collaborated with Clint Borzoni in his operas Margot Alone in the Light and Antinous and Hadrian, as well as with Stephen Andrew Taylor in scenes from his opera Paradises Lost with Operamission. Other recent performances include Mercédès as well as the title role in Bizet’s Carmen with the Crested Butte Music Festival as a member of the Marcello Giordani Young Artist Program, Susanna in Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles with the Aspen Opera Theatre Center, Nerone in Agrippina with Operamission, Dulcinée in Massenet’s rarely performed Don Quichotte with Utopia Opera, and Angelina in La Cenerentola with Dicapo Opera.

 

Also in demand as a concert artist, appearances have included the west-coast premiere of Mack Wilberg’s Requiem, Irving Fine’s The Hourglass and An Immorality by Copland with The National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall, and Das Lied von der Erde with the Orchestra Insonica at Paul Hall, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle with the Greenwich Choral Society and Mozart’s Requiem with the Camerata New York.  Ms. Sogioka also collaborated with renowned harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, in selections from Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium, and also performed as part of his master class series for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. 

This year, Ms. Sogioka was the first place winner of the Rochester Oratorio Society Classical Idol Competition, as well as winner of the Audience Favorite Award and second place winner in the New Jersey State Opera Alfredo Silipigni Vocal Competition.  She also made her off Broadway debut in the New York Musical Theatre Festival singing the role of the Evangelist Narrator in Gerald Fried’s Omnia ad Dei Gloriam (or Les the Least Straightens the Lord).