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The American soprano, pianist and choral conductor, Sarah Pelletier, obtained her Bachelor of Art degree from Wellesley College, her Master of Music from Westminster Choir College , and her Certificate from Boston University Opera Institute. She studied with Dodie Protero, Penelope Bitzas, Lindsey Christiansen and Hazel O'Donnell. She was a Finalist in the International Opera Singers Competition, sponsored by the Center for Contemporary Opera in New York City, and the NATS Artist Awards Competition. She Pelletier made her New York City recital debut as a Finalist in the 1999 Poulenc Centennial Competition.
Sarah Pelletier performs professionally as a pianist and singer. As a pianist, she has accompanied and toured with The American Boychoir and The Westminster Choir, and has served as Musical Director of the Opera Theater of Weston in Vermont.
Sarah Pelletier has gained recognition through performances at the world’s most renowned music festivals such as the Spoleto Festival USA, Bard Music Festival, Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto, Aldeburgh Festival, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. Her singing has been praised by the Boston Globe for possessing “virtues of voice, intelligence and musicianship… with purity of tone and expression”. Her operatic career has extended internationally with performances at the Maggio Fiorentino and the Aldeburgh Festival, UK, and nationally as well with Opera North, Opera Theater of Philadelphia, Princeton Festival Opera, and Opera-Aperta of Boston. Her operatic roles have included Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Mimì in La Bohème, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Lady Billows in Albert Herring. She has collaborated on these productions with many esteemed conductors and directors such as Seiji Ozawa, David Kneuss, Drew Minter, James Robert Carson, and Craig Smith.
As a concert soloist, Sarah Pelletier has performed with the New Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo, the Gulf Coast Symphony (FL), and with a number of orchestras in New Jersey such as the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Garden State Philharmonic, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra, Princeton Pro Musica, and Westminster Community Orchestra of New Jersey. In the Boston area, she has performed with the New England Philharmonic, Cambridge Symphony, Hingham Symphony, Emmanuel Music, Coro Allegro, and New England Classical Singers.
As an advocate of the art-song recital, Sarah Pelletier is a founding member of the Florestan Recital Project, and she has given solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Goethe Institute in Boston. Her interest in Contemporary Music has led to premieres by James Yannatos, Howard Frazin, Arlene Zallman, and John Goodman as well as performances under the direction of Lukas Foss, Robert Spano, and John Harbison. She has performed on many contemporary music series including the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Composers in Red Sneakers, and the “Music in Time Series” at the Spoleto Festival USA. She has been featured on the BBC radio broadcast Live from Tanglewood and has recorded Benjamin Britten’s Te Deum in C under Joseph Flummerfelt for Chesky Records.
Highlights of recent past seasons include a recital at the Kennedy Center on the Millennium Stage; Mozart Vesperae Solennes de confessore at Carnegie Hall; performances with New England Philharmonic of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Schwantner’s Magabunda; J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor (BWV 232) with the San Francisco Bach Choir; the title role in Schumann’s Genoveva and George Frideric Handel’s Ariodante with Emmanuel Music; and Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd with Princeton Festival Opera. Ms. Pelletier has toured with Maestro Seiji Ozawa to Japan, China, and Italy with performances of Madama Butterfly and Peter Grimes at the Saito Kinen Festival and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. She has been the recipient of a Vocal Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center. Her recent performances have included Johannes Brahms’ Requiem, Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart’s Requiem and C minor Mass, G.F. Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, and G.F. Handel’s Messiah at the Washington National Cathedral.
Sarah Pelletier is Associate Choir Director of the Princeton High School Choir. She has been on the faculty at The Walnut Hill School, Emerson College, The Peddie School, and is currently on the Vocal Performing Faculty at Princeton University. |
