Meredith Arwady, Contralto

Biography

Contralto Meredith Arwady, is a winner of the 2004 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. A member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Ryan Opera Center ensemble, Ms. Arwady made her mainstage debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2005. This season she was seen as Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, as Pasqualita in Dr. Atomic, and in roles in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Giulio Cesare. She is the recipient of the 2005 Kirsten Flagstad Award, presented by the George London Foundation Competition for a singer with a promising Wagnerian career. She was also the First Prize winner of both the 2004 Licia Albanese/Puccini Competition and the inaugural Marian Anderson Prize for Emerging Classical Artists (2002), and was a recipient of a Sara Tucker Grant. Most recently, Ms. Arwady was awarded a 2007 Richard Tucker Career Grant.

Engagements for the 2007-2008 season include: Beethoven Symphony No.9 and Bach Cantata No. 7 with the Seattle Symphony, Mahler Symphony No. 2 with the Houston Symphony, Elgar's Sea Pictures with the Kalamazoo Symphony, as well as a New York recital sponsored by the Marilyn Home Foundation.

Previous engagements include her debut with the New York Philharmonic; with the Toronto Symphony, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis; with Pittsburgh Symphony, also conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. She performed as soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach at the Ravinia Festival.

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Ms. Arwady received a Masters of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied voice with Marlena Kleinman Malas.