Dr. Soon Cho

Praised by Opera News for her “potent presence” and hailed by Cincinnati Post as “regal in bearing, with vocal endowments to match… [where] tears were listener response to her heart-wrenching performance” as Dido, lyric mezzo-soprano Soon Cho has gained recognition for her sensitive artistry and winning execution on the concert and opera stages around the world. Cho has been under the batons of world-renowned conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Kristjan Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Erich Kunzel, Julius Rudel, Mischa Santora, and David Zinman; and has collaborated with Jake Heggie, Michael Fiday, Warren Jones, Scott McAllister, and Raf De Keninck of Ensemble Emanon in Belgium in premieres and promotion of original works.

Opera credits include Costanza in Haydn’s L’Isola Disabitata with New York Philomusica; Dido in Dido and Aeneas with Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO); Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Seongnam Arts Center in Korea; Mao’s 2nd Secretary in Nixon in China with Cincinnati Opera; “delightfully melodramatic” Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte with the CCO and at the Astoria Music Festival; Adalgisa in Norma with Opera in the Heights; Mercedes in Carmen with Dayton Opera; Zita in Gianni Schicchi at the Opera Festival of Lucca with a repeat performance at the 50th Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Italy; Mother Goose in the National Public Radio broadcasted performance of The Rake’s Progress with the Aspen Music Festival; La Pucelle in Belladonna, a world premiere performance with the Aspen Opera Theater Center; Hansel in Hansel and Gretel at College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati (CCM) and Opera-to-Go of the Houston Grand Opera; Mrs. Clemm in Dominick Argento’s The Voyage of Edgar Allen Poe at CCM; L’Enfant in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges; Mother Marie in Dialogues of the Carmelites; Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Vera Boronel in The Consul.

Her concert and oratorio work as a soloist include Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Cincinnati Symphony and May Festival Chorus with Awadagin Pratt as the piano soloist; A Salute to Opera with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra at the Riverbend Music Center; Berlioz’s Les Nuit D’Eté with Opera Philharmonic of Bourgas, Bulgaria; Handel’s Messiah with Pilgrim’s Chorus and Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada; Bach’s St. John Passion with Vocal Arts Ensemble and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, St. Matthew Passion and Magnificat; Falla’s Three Cornered Hat and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with CCM Philharmonia Orchestra and Combined Choruses; Mozart’s Requiem at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral; Rossini’s Pettite Messe Solennel; Saint Saëns’s Messe; and Vivaldi’s Gloria to list a few. As a recitalist, Cho has performed recitals and concerts all over the U.S., Canada, Korea, and Belgium.

As the U.S. Southern Region winner, Ms. Cho has been invited to participate in the 21st International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna and has been the recipient of the prestigious Artman and Straub Opera Award at CCM, Ralph Corbett Award, Dieterle Vocal Scholarship, Brechemin Family Foundation Award, Cecilia Bartoli Scholarship, and Young Artist Soloist of the Year. Cho has been a member of the Cincinnati Opera Young Artist Program, Dayton Opera Artist-in-Residence, Seattle Opera Educational Outreach Program, Houston Grand Opera's Opera-to-Go Educational Outreach Program, and the Aspen Opera Theater Center.

Ms. Cho holds an Artist Diploma in Opera from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where she is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice candidate with cognate fields of Vocal Pedagogy and Opera Stage Directing. Her primary teachers have been Barbara Honn at CCM; Dr. Joyce Farwell of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she received the Master of Music in Voice; Carmen Pelton at University of Washington, where she received the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance; and W. Stephen Smith of the Julliard School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival for five consecutive summers as a scholarship recipient. Cho has been the Assistant Director of the Grandin Festival devoted to promoting and performing vocal chamber music in Cincinnati, where internationally renowned living American composers and coaches such as Thomas Pasatieri, Jake Heggie, Lee Hoiby, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Musto, Rudolf Piernay, Mary Dibbern, Warren Jones, and David Gordon worked closely with young vocalists and instrumentalists to prepare vocal chamber music from seventeenth to twenty-first century. Cho is currently a member of the voice faculty at Baylor University where her students have been semi-finalists and finalists in the Regional and District National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competitions. Cho is a frequent clinician and adjudicator in regional and state conferences and competitions and has held master classes all over U.S. and Belgium.

Ms. Cho’s recording credits include Michael Fiday: Same Rivers Different with Innova Recordings label and Menotti Arias for Mezzo-soprano with Hal Leonard Publishing, both available through amazon.com. She is currently working on future recording projects featuring living American composers and engaged in research to demonstrate the benefits of vocal function exercises used in adolescent professional voice users to help prevent vocal disorders.