Elisabeth Marshall

SOPRANO

Elisabeth Marshall has been praised for her “admirably flexible, gilt-edged voice” of “resonance and beauty” and “radiant sheen”, particularly in works of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. Recipient of The American Prize Special Citation for “Outstanding Performance of Music before 1800”, she is also their 2017 Third Prize winner and 2016 finalist in the Art Song and Oratorio division. Ms. Marshall made her Chicago Symphony Center concert soloist debut with the Apollo Chorus in 2015 in Messiah (Handel), which she has also sung with the Cincinnati Symphony, at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel in Chicago, with the Hailsham Choral Society in England, and the Oratorio Chorale in Portland, Maine; in Mattäuspassion (J.S. Bach) with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival; Choral Fantasia (Beethoven) with CBE Raymond Leppard at the Indianapolis Symphony; Requiem, K.626 (Mozart) at Rochester Cathedral in England; B minor Mass (J.S. Bach) with Chorus pro Musica (Boston), and with the Choral Art Society (Portland, Maine); and as the first soprano soloist in Mass in C minor, K. 427 (Mozart) with the Maine Music Society, the South Hadley Chorale, and the U.S. collegiate premiere of the Robert Levin edition. She has also frequently appeared as a featured guest soloist in concert with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, with Robert Moody and with Bruce Hangen, in works of Handel, Mozart, and others.

A passionate recital artist, Ms. Marshall makes her debut with the Cincinnati Song Initiative in 2021, co-curating a program of songs on the poetry of Heinrich Heine. A regular guest artist with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, she has also appeared in recital with the Brooklyn New Music Collective (New York), Gallery Concerts (Seattle), at King’s Chapel (Boston), and as a special guest in a solo recital at the Leipzig Consulate in Germany. Her recording of JamesKallembach’s Four Romantic Songs on Brooklyn Art Song Society’s debut album “New Voices” (Roven Records) was praised by OPERA NEWS as “radiant” and “sensuous”, and in 2018 she was featured in Darkness from which I come by Delvyn Case on “Strange Energy”, the debut album of the Deus ex Musica label. She has worked closely with several living composers including Libby Larsen, Scott Wheeler, and Herschel Garfein, as well as Oscar Strasnoy, Nathanael Pangrazio, and the late Richard Hundley.

Rooted in a love of choral music, Ms. Marshall is a professional ensemble member of the Handel & Haydn Society, The Thirteen, and the Oregon Bach Festival, and has previously sung with the Lorelei Ensemble, Emmanuel Music (Boston), Carmel Bach Festival, St. Agnes Schola Cantorum (NYC), Junges Stuttgarter Bachensemble, La Academia de Bach in Chile, London Philharmonia Chorus, and the Wexford Festival Opera Chorus, with conductors including Harry Christophers, Stefan Asbury, Matthew Halls, Leonard Slatkin, Masaaki Suzuki, and Craig Hella Johnson.

Equally at home on the opera stage, she has been hailed for her “precision” and “technical skill” as the Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute) in London, and has also been seen as Frasquita (Carmen) at Bay Chamber Concerts, Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) and Rosabella (The Most Happy Fella) under the baton of Constantine Kitsopoulos at the Indiana University Opera Theater, Elisetta (Il matrimonio segreto) in Leipzig, Germany, and Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro) in Portland, Maine.

Recipient of a Fulbright grant to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig, Germany, Ms. Marshall holds a Doctorate in Music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where her principal teacher was legendary soprano Carol Vaness, of whom she wrote a two-part feature biography series for Classical Singer magazine in 2020-2021. Awarded a professional fellowship at SongFest (Los Angeles) in 2017, she has worked in master classes, workshops, and coachings with Martin Katz, Roberta Alexander, and Sanford Sylvan, as well as Roger Vignoles, Ned Rorem, Håkan Hagagård, and Suzanne Murphy.

Ms. Marshall is based in the Chicago area where she maintains a freelance solo and ensemble performing career, a private voice studio, and, in 2020, began freelance writing. She has previously held faculty positions at the Ithaca College School of Music and the University of Southern Maine School of Music.