Performance Year: 2018, 2022, 2025
Two-time GRAMMY Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been called a “luminous standout” by the New York Times and “equal parts poise, radiance and elegant directness” by Opera News. Ms. Cooke has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Seattle Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, among others, and with over 80 symphony orchestras worldwide frequently in the works of Mahler. Last season marked Ms. Cooke’s appointment at the Music Academy of the West as Co-Director of the Lehrer Vocal Institute. Her album how do I find you was nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Vocal Solo Album.
Ms. Cooke opened the 2023/24 season with a return to the San Francisco Opera, reprising the role of Laurene Jobs in Mason Bates’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, for which won the 2019 Grammy for Best Opera Recording. She also made role debuts as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde at Opéra de Rouen and as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at Houston Grand Opera. She sang world premieres by Joby Talbot in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at Dallas Opera and in a song cycle by Scott Ordway on the Stanford Live series. In concert, Ms. Cooke returned to the San Francisco Symphony for Pulcinella, Oregon Symphony and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for Messiah, and recorded John Corigliano’s One Sweet Morning with Nashville Symphony.
As a dedicated recitalist, Ms. Cooke was presented by Young Concert Artists in her widely acclaimed New York and Washington debuts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and the Kennedy Center. She has also appeared in recital at Alice Tully Hall, The Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center and the 92nd St Y. Most recently, she appears on recordings, including Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer on Pentatone, Michael Tilson Thomas’ Meditations on Rilke with the San Francisco Symphony, which won the 2021 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Compendium, L’enfance du Christ with the Melbourne Symphony on Chandos, Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs on Pentatone, which won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, and Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra on BIS.
A graduate of Rice University and The Juilliard School, Sasha Cooke also attended the Music Academy of the West, the Aspen Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute, the Wolf Trap Foundation, the Marlboro Music Festival, the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and Seattle Opera and Central City Opera’s Young Artist Training Programs. Ms. Cooke has given masterclasses throughout the United States, Australia, and Canada.
