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The American soprano, Olivia Prendergast, obtained Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Arts Administration and Communication from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music (2016-June 2020), where she studied under Karen Brunssen. She performed a glittering Adele in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and as the young daughter (2020), Lisa, in David T. Little’s Dog Days (2019), Performing Dog Days under composer Little’s guidance and Pierson’s musical understanding, she feels that this performance changed her as a musician, pushing her limits in a production described as “challenging, gripping and not for the faint of heart” by Around the Town Chicago. Known for her captivating performances, and her expressively rich and lively soprano voice, Olivia Prendergast has also been seen on the Northwestern stage as Flora in Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw (2018) and “a spunky Beth” in Copland’s The Tender Land. Acclaimed as “a soprano with an important voice”, she performed in Northwestern’s Tichio-Finnie Vocal Master Class Series, featuring operatic tenor, Michael Fabiano. Outside of Evanston, she appeared as Bastienna in W.A. Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienna with the Chicago South Loop Symphony (2019).
Olivia Prendergast's next adventure took her to the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (IU) for her Master of Music degree in Voice (since August 2020; expected graduation: 2022), where she studied with Timothy Noble for her first year. In her first year at IU, she performed as Romilda in George Frideric Handel’s Xerxes with Indiana University’s Opera Theater (2021). In addition, she also performed in the chorus of IUOT’s Little Women (2020) with chorus master, Walter Huff, and sang Tom Cipullo’s Late Summer song set in recital with doctoral collaborative pianist, Sandy Lin. She currently studies with soprano Heidi Grant-Murphy, and is looking forward to jump into her second year to hopefully perform mask-free! This summer, she joins her southern family in Georgia as a 2021 Savannah VOICE Festival Artist, where she will perform as Clorinda in Michael Ching’s new opera, A Royal Feast, a sequel to Rossini’s La Cenerentola for children, among many other concerts and outreach programming to the greater Savannah community.
Known for vibrant interpretations of both operatic and song repertoire, Olivia Prendergast attended SongFest as a Studio Artist and Schubert Fellow (2017), performing in master-classes with Sanford Sylvan and composer Libby Larsen. Her time at Russian Opera Workshop in the summer of 2018 kindled a new love of Russian repertoire, tying back to her Ukrainian and Slovakian backgrounds. Since then, she has performed several Russian works from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Prokofiev art songs in recital. At the Savannah Voice Festival (2017, 2018), she made her operatic solo debut as the Sandman in a children’s outreach production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, adoring the children’s laughter in the audience even more than the adult’s praises. Olivia returned to the Milnes Voice Studio to perform in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites as Sister St. Charles, and was hailed as “captivating and expressive” by director Fabrizio Melano. During her time with the Savannah Voice family, she performed in a master-class with infamous operatic baritone and coach, Sherrill Milnes.
An avid contemporary music lover and performer, Olivia Prendergast has been a featured soloist in concert works under conductor Alan Pierson, such as quartet soloist in Steve Reich’s Tehillim and soloist in Shawn Jaeger’s Letters Made with Gold. She often dives into modern choral works as a member of Bienen’s Baroque and Contemporary Ensemble, nicknamed “B.C.E.”, led by Grammy winning conductor, Donald Nally. With a combination of modern concert work and new operatic repertoire, she has a deep love and appreciation for new music, and how new music can function in the art world today. Reaching the opposite end in the musical timeline, she also led the only student-run early music chamber ensemble at Northwestern University, The Renaissance Singers. Singing as soprano and alto, she is one of ten students in this audition-only ensemble specializing in Baroque and Renaissance music. Over the past four years, The Renaissance Singers has become her musical family, and early music has a soft spot in her heart. |
