During the 2022-23 season, Chinese-American mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce returns to Houston Grand Opera to sing the role of Jack and cover Thirza in Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera The Wreckers. She will also make role and house debuts with Calgary Opera as Laurene Powell in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs led by Michael Christie; Opera Philadelphia as Emilia in Rossini’s Otello with conductor Corrado Rovaris; and Detroit Opera as Arsamene in Xerxes under the baton of Dame Jane Glover. In concert, she will perform Mozart’s Requiem with the Houston Symphony conducted by Itzhak Perlman; Szymanowski’s Songs of the Infatuated Muezzin with The Orchestra Now at the Fisher Center at Bard and Carnegie Hall; as well as a pair of recitals for Lyric Fest in Philadelphia.
Last season, Ms. Pierce debuted four new roles on stage at Houston Grand Opera: Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette); sing Sister Mathilde and cover Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites; Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte; and Mercédès in Carmen. Additional appearances included reviving her portrayal of Mozart’s Second Lady for Des Moines Metro Opera; joining the Aspen Music Festival in a role debut as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and mezzo-soprano soloist in concerts of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Druckman’s Dark Upon the Harp; and made her San Francisco Opera debut as Bao Chai in Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber with the San Francisco Opera.
In 2020, Ms. Pierce was first place winner of the Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers and was selected as a Keston MAX Fellows which were to perform with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle before the pandemic forced its cancellation. The previous year she was a semi-finalist in the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition and a Vocal Fellow at Academy of the West. She was selected as an Encouragement Winner of the New England Region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2021.
A native of Clinton, New York, Ms. Pierce holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance degree from the Eastman School of Music and is an alumni of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of Dawn Upshaw, Kayo Iwama, and Erika Switzer.
Ms. Pierce will perform with The Orchestra Now on April 29 & 30 and May 4, 2023.
Bio: April 2023