SARAH COBURN

2016 Hall of Fame

B.S. Music Education, ’99

Sarah Coburn is captivating international audiences with her “precision placement, mercury speed, and a gorgeous liquid gold tone, gilded by a thrilling top and bottom register” (The Globe and Mail). Her 2016-2017 season includes Adèle in Le comte Ory with Seattle Opera, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Opera San Antonio, and a role and company debut as Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Atlanta Opera. Next summer she will return to the Tivoli Festival for a concert with tenor Lawrence Brownlee and the Copenhagen Philharmonic.

 

Coburn, of Tulsa, Okla., graduated from OSU in 1999 with a B.A. in music education. She earned a master’s degree in music with an emphasis in vocal music from Oklahoma City University.

 

Recent highlights include the role of Amina in La sonnambula with the Wiener Staatsoper, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Seattle Opera, Marie in La fille du regiment with Seattle Opera and Tulsa Opera, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Tulsa Opera, Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Washington National Opera, Princess Yue-Yang in the world premiere production of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera opposite Placido Domingo, Rosina with Florida Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Tulsa Opera, Seattle Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera; the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor with Washington National Opera, Tulsa Opera and Utah Opera; Gilda in Rigoletto with Welsh National Opera, Opéra de Montréal, Los Angeles Opera, Portland Opera, Arizona Opera, and Cincinnati Opera; Asteria in Tamerlano with Washington National Opera and Los Angeles Opera; Vittoria in Pedrotti’s Tutti in maschera at Wexford Festival Opera, Euridice in Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo with the Handel & Haydn Society and Glimmerglass Opera, Elvira in I puritani with the Tivoli Festival, Boston Lyric Opera and Washington Concert Opera, Lakmé with Tulsa Opera, Lucie de Lammermoor with both Cincinnati Opera and Glimmerglass Opera, Linda di Chamounix at the Caramoor Festival, and Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Glimmerglass Opera. Ms. Coburn created the role of Kitty in the world premiere of Anna Karenina at Florida Grand Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

 

She has sung Adele in Die Fledermaus with both Seattle Opera and Michigan Opera Theatre, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, and Cincinnati Opera, Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier with Cincinnati Opera, Norina in Don Pasquale, Sandrina in La finta giardiniera and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Florida Grand Opera.

 

She has appeared in concert with Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic at the Tivoli Festival, and the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra; and Handel & Haydn Society as soloist for Elijah and Messiah. She has also sung Messiah with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra; Carmina Burana with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Wind Symphony; and has joined the Seattle Symphony for Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

 

Ms. Coburn has appeared in concert with Bryn Terfel with Florida Grand Opera, as well as in a duo-recital for the United States Supreme Court; in recital with Lawrence Brownlee for the Vocal Arts Society, with Los Angeles Opera and the Mark Morris Dance Group in Handel’s “L’allegro, il penseroso, ed il moderato” and in recital at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

 

Ms. Coburn has received awards from the George London Foundation, The Richard Tucker Foundation, The Jensen Foundation, The Liederkranz Foundation, Opera Index, and was a National Grand Finalist in the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.