Michele Kennedy

Praised by The Washington Post as “a fine young soprano with a lovely voice” whose “graceful tonal clarity was a wonder to hear” (The San Francisco Chronicle), Michele Kennedy is a versatile specialist in early and contemporary music.  Her recent concert venues include Carnegie Hall, Davies Hall, Getty Museum, Library of Congress, Lincoln Center, and Washington National Cathedral.

 A native of California, Michele’s early music and oratorio highlights include The Monteverdi Vespers with Dark Horse Consort & Voices of Ascension, selected Bach Cantatas with American Classical Orchestra, Bach’s Magnificat and St. John Passion with Voices of Music & The San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Handel’s Messiah with Trinity Wall Street, and Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with San Francisco Ballet.  She has been a featured soloist in Poulenc’s Gloria with The Bach Society of St. Louis, and in a recital of works by Caccini and Monteverdi with The Folger Consort in Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theater.

Under the pandemic, Michele has made her debuts in digital form with Opera Lafayette (From Lamentation to Liberation), San Francisco’s Ars Minerva (arias of Joseph de Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges) and Cleveland’s Les Délices in a Women in Music salon featuring Baroque selections by Strozzi, Caccini, Leonarda, and de la Guerre profiled by Cleveland Classical here.

A champion of new music and wide-ranging cultural narratives on the stage, Michele has premiered works with Center for Contemporary Opera, Contemporaneous, Experiments in Opera, Harlem Stage Opera, and is featured in Mimesis Ensemble’s new CD celebrating perseverance in hard times. In Fall of 2020 she debuted in Chris Cerrone’s Beaufort Scales with Lorelei Ensemble, with whom she’ll perform Julia Wolfe’s triumphant work Her Story alongside the Boston, Chicago, Nashville, National, and SF Symphony Orchestras next year.