Mary Bonhag, soprano is a 2009 winner of the Bard College concerto competition and will sing Sibelius’ tone poem Luonnotar with the American Symphony Orchestra next season. In 2007, she also won 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. Last May she made 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. This spring she will sing the roles of le Feu, la Princesse, and le Rossignol in Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortilèges at the Fisher Center at Bard College.

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, Yellow Barn, and SongFest as a full-scholarship Stern Fellow, 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.

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.