Voice
Jennifer Sgroe began her musical career in dance and musical theater before transitioning into the operatic repertoire. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Kentucky, a Master of Music in Opera from The Boston Conservatory, and recently completed the Doctorate of Musical Arts, from the University of Kentucky . Her DMA document made the first formal study of the songs of composer Scott Wheeler: 21st_Century American Composer: A Selected Study of the Songs of Scott Wheeler. For more information on composer Scott Wheeler visit www.scottwheeler.org
She has taught voice on all levels for the past 10 years in private studio, community music schools, high school after-school programs and at the university level. In 2000, she served as an Apprentice Artist with Utah Opera, where she toured the states of Utah and Wyoming performing and teaching in their Opera Outreach programs. During her time in Utah, she had the opportunity to introduce opera to a diverse group of students, including those of the Navajo Reservation in Monument Valley, UT. Past university teaching positions include New York University, the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University as an instructor of voice and diction for singers. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and the Boston Singer’s Resource.
Recent accomplishments include 3rd Place in the 2010 David Adams Art Song Competiton in New York and 2nd place in the Boston area NATS Artist Award Competition, where she went on to compete as a New England Regional Finalist. In June 2010, she performed a recital as part of opening ceremonies for the Salem Arts Festival with pianist Beverly Soll. “Art Songs of Experience” included works Mozart, Strauss, Wolf, Poulenc, Ives and others. This past August she was a soloist on the Longwood Opera Summer Concert Series program of Gilbert & Sullivan favorites and also joined New England Lyric Opera for their summer concert series program “Vienna to Broadway”. Other recent performances include Pamina with New York Lyric Opera Theater in January 2010 and the Dew Fairy & Sandman (Hansel & Gretel) with Amore Opera. She was also recognized as a National semi-finalist in Shreveport Opera’s 2010 Singer of the Year Competition.
Highlights from her past operatic performances include the roles of Susanna and Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Romilda (Xerxes), Pamina and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Monica (The Medium), Noémie (Cendrillon), Greta Fiorentino (Street Scene), and Drusilla (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), as well as the premiere of the role of Esther in Scott Wheeler’s opera Democracy: An American Comedy at American Opera Projects in New York.
She has performed with Utah Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Boston Academy of Music, Amherst Early Music Festival, New Trinity Baroque, Knoxville Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, Lexington Opera Society, the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria, Lexington Opera Society, Delaware Valley Opera, for the General Assembly of The United Nations, and at Carnegie and Radio City Music Hall.
Internationally, Ms. Sgroe has been heard at the Sastamala Gregoriana Early Music Festival in Karkku, Finland and The Dartington Festival (United Kingdom) as the Angel in Handel’s Jephtha with conductor Graeme Jenkins. Other concert performances include the soprano soloist in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, also at Dartington, Handel’s Messiah with Commonwealth Opera, the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, and Schubert’s Mass in A-flat Major in Graz, Austria. She was a winner of the National Opera Association Vocal Competition as well as the Settimane di Lugano International Festival Competition, and has been named a NATS Foundation Award Winner, and a Liberace Scholar for Excellence in the Creative and Performing Arts.