Isabel Leonard

College Vocal Arts Artist in Residence (no instruction)

Multiple Grammy Award-winning and MSM Precollege alumna Isabel Leonard (PC ’98, HonDMA ’21) continues to thrill audiences both in the opera house and on the concert stage. In repertoire that spans from Vivaldi to Mozart to Nico Muhly, she has graced the stages of the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Carnegie Hall, Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Aix-en-Provence Festival, The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, LA Opera, and The Santa Fe Opera in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rosina), La Cenerentola (Angelina), Le nozze di Figaro (Cherubino), Così fan tutte (Dorabella), Don Giovanni (Zerlina/Donna Elvira), La clemenza di Tito (Sesto), Werther (Charlotte), Dialogues des Carmélites (Blanche de la Force), Griselda (Costanza), La bohème (Musetta), Giulio Cesare (Sesto), and the title roles in Carmen, La Périchole, Cendrillon, Marnie, and Der Rosenkavalier.

She has appeared with some of the foremost conductors of her time: Valery Gergiev, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézét-Seguin, Franz Welser-Möst, Plácido Domingo, Edward Gardner, James Levine, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Marin Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, Michele Mariotti, Harry Bicket, Andris Nelsons, and Michael Tilson Thomas with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, among others.

Ms. Leonard is in constant demand as a recitalist and is on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Hall and the Artistic Advisory Board of ArtSmart. She is a multiple Grammy Award winner, most recently for Michael Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frank on SFS Media (2021) for Best Classical Compendium, Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges on Decca (2016) and The Tempest from The Metropolitan Opera on Deutsche Grammophon (2014), both Best Opera Recording.

Television and film appearances include Sesame Street and host for The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD movie theater transmissions. Ms. Leonard is the recipient of the Richard Tucker Award and has lent her voice, in honor of her father who died from the disease, to the Prostate Cancer Foundation by filming a public service announcement (PSA).

In 2021-2022 Isabel returns to The Metropolitan Opera for Cendrillon and Ariadne auf Naxos (Komponist), Washington National Opera for Come Home: A Celebration of Return and Carmen, and The Santa Fe Opera for Carmen. She will return to the National Symphony Orchestra for a 9/11 commemoration concert conducted by Giancarlo Noseda, University of Connecticut for a solo recital, and makes her debut in Russia in a solo orchestral concert in the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory conducted by Marco Armiliato.