Performance Year: 2022
Making her mark as an “especially impressive” (The New York Times) soprano, Australian-American Nola Richardson has won first prize in all three major American competitions focused on the music of J.S. Bach (Bethlehem Bach, 2016; Audrey Rooney Bach, 2018; Grand Rapids Symphony Linn Maxwell Keller Award, 2019). These honors have catapulted her to the forefront of Baroque ensembles and orchestras around the country, where she has been praised for her “astonishing balance and accuracy,” “crystalline diction,” and “natural-sounding ease” (Washington Post).
During the 2020-2021 season, Nola took part in several virtual concerts. She made debuts with the Atlanta Symphony in a Bach program led by Robert Spano, Musica Angelica in a program of Bach and Handel, and the National Cathedral Choral Society in a “Joy of Christmas” special. In June she collaborated with the Sonnambula ensemble to film excerpts of the role of Apolo from the baroque zarzuela “Apolo e Dafne” by Durón. She was also a featured soloist in Seraphic Fire’s Season S and “Mozart and Monteverdi” programs, performed a solo concert of cantatas by Handel and Scarlatti with the Colorado Bach Ensemble, and took part in virtual concerts with the Bethlehem Bach Societyand Voices of Ascension.
She previously appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, American Bach Soloists and many other orchestras and ensembles. In the opera house, she has been featured in several Mozart roles at a variety of American companies.
An Australian by birth, Nola has spent most of her life in the US. She holds a BM from Illinois Wesleyan University and dual MM degrees in vocal performance and early mMusic from the Peabody Conservatory. She was a young artist with the Boston Early Music Festival, a vocal fellow at Tanglewood, a Marc and Eva Stern Fellow at Songfest, and most recently, a Carmel Bach Festival Virginia Best Adams Fellow in 2019. Nola attended the Institute of Sacred Music Program and in May of 2020 she was the first and only female singer to receive the prestigious DMA degree in Early Music Voice from Yale.
