Soprano Miriam Khalil joins the Department of Music

Lebanese-Canadian, Juno nominated artist, Miriam Khalil has established herself as one of Canada’s most versatile and expressive performers. She has become increasingly known for her non traditional performances of opera, art song and concert repertoire.

Miriam has sung on numerous opera stages across North America, South America and the UK, including several seasons at the renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the United Kingdom. She has sung leading roles at companies across Canada and the United States; acclaimed for her interpretations of Mimì in La bohème; Elvira in Don Giovanni; Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro; Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande; the Governess in The Turn of the Screw; Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare; and the title role in Handel’s Alcina.

She is a proud co-founder and Associate Artistic Director of the Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning opera company Against the Grain Theatre (AtG). Miriam is delighted to help shape “one of the most important opera companies in Canada” (Calgary Herald). With AtG, she produced and was nominated for a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year for her debut album Ayre: Live, a song cycle by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. With this song cycle, she made her South American debut, and premiered Ayre in Buenos Aires at the Kirchner Cultural Centre. She has sung Ayre to critical acclaim across Canada, opened the prestigious Rockport Music Festival in the USA, and the 21c Music Festival at Toronto’s acclaimed Koerner Hall, making this Song Cycle her signature piece.

She was also a soloist in the groundbreaking film Messiah/Complex, an internationally acclaimed AtG/Toronto Symphony Orchestra realization of Handel’s Messiah captured against iconic Canadian landscapes. With her home company, AtG, she recently made her directorial film debut with Gustav Holst’s opera Sāvitri.

Miriam is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, the Steans Institute for Young Artists (Ravinia) and the Britten-Bears Young Artist Programme in the UK. She is also an Alumni of The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music and The University of Ottawa.

She is delighted to join the Faculty of Music at U of A. For more information: www.miriamkhalil.com