Mary Bonhag, is a rising soprano devoted to the communicative powers of music. She is a 2007 winner of the University of Michigan Concerto Competition, which resulted in a performance of Messiaen’s Poèmes Pour Mi with the University Symphony Orchestra. She is an avid supporter of new music and has worked closely with numerous composers to premier new works, most recently and frequently with Michigan-based composer Curtis Curtis-Smith. This May she will make her Carnegie Hall solo debut singing in David T. Little’s new chamber opera Dog Days as part of the Osvaldo Golijov/Dawn Upshaw Carnegie Hall Workshop series. In 2007, she created the role of “Eve” for the Pine Mountain Music Festival premiere of The Diaries of Adam and Eve, a new chamber opera by Evan Premo.

Ms. Bonhag has a deep-rooted love of chamber music and recital repertoire and has performed as part of the Fontana Chamber Arts Festival of Kalamazoo, MI, the Maui Classical Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains, Cactus Pear Music Festival, the Lancaster Music Festival, among others. She is equally at home on the concert and operatic stages, having sung in Italy, Germany, South Africa, Hawai’i, and much of the continental U.S. She has soloed with the Berkshire Bach Society, University of Michigan Chamber Choir, University Choir, and Arts Chorale as well as the Lehigh University Orchestra, University (of Michigan) Symphony Orchestra, the U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble, the Superior Chamber Orchestra and the Keewenaw Symphony Orchestra.

This summer Ms. Bonhag will attend SongFest in Malibu, CA as a full-scholarship Stern Fellow, and will return to the Strings Music Festival, Cactus Pear Music Festival, and Lancaster Festival to sing chamber music and solo repertoire.

Ms. Bonhag is co-founder of “Duo Borealis” with double bassist/composer Evan Premo, performing eclectic concerts of folk, classical, and original music. She is a recent graduate from the University of Michigan with a B.M. in vocal performance where she studied with Carmen Pelton. Ms. Bonhag is currently earning her Master’s Degree at Dawn Upshaw’s graduate voice program at Bard College. She studies with Edith Bers.