About

A native of Newfoundland, mezzo-soprano Michelle Simmons is a graduate of the Master of Music Vocal Performance program at the University of  Toronto.  Ms. Simmons was the recipient of the Greta Kraus Fellowship towards her studies at the University of Toronto, and was a First Place winner in her category at the NATS Ontario Student Auditions.

 

Ms. Simmons has sung in the choruses of Toronto Operetta Theatre and Opera in Concert.  She made her Toronto stage debut in the role of Soeur Mathilde in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.  Other opera roles include Sesto in Handel’s Julius Caesar, Lisetta in Haydn’s Voyage to the Moon, and Third Lady in Mozart’s Magic Flute.  During the summer of 2010, Ms. Simmons performed the role of Minerve in Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfersin the south of France. 

 

Ms. Simmons has a strong commitment to performing and creating contemporary classical music. Recently she shared the stage at The Theatre Centre with Cynthia Hopkins as part of that artist’s multi-disciplinary piece on climate change, This Clement World. She spent the summer of 2013 bringing contemporary opera to communities in southern Ontario with the Bicycle Opera Project. In 2012 Michelle collaborated and performed in an original piece for the Alliance Française de Toronto celebrating the 150th anniversary of Claude Debussy’s death, Debussy Entre Les Lignes. As part of their 2010-11 cultural programming, she presented a contemporary setting of the famed De la Fontaine fables, Fables Enchantées.  During the fall of 2010, Ms. Simmons performed in the avant-garde, inter-disciplinary art installation Allegory for a Rock Opera, presented by Derek Liddington during Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto.  While completing her graduate studies at  the University of Toronto in 2004, she commissioned Canadian composer David Passmore to create a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and baritone to the words of Newfoundland-born poet E.J Pratt.  The premiere of Many Moods, took place in St. John’s, Newfoundland with support from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council. 

 

Ms. Simmons has participated in Masterclasses in association with the Franco American Vocal Academy (FAVA), Summer Opera Lyric Theatre of Toronto (SOLT), the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS), and the University of Toronto.  She has coached with such renowned artists as Martin Isepp, Sir Thomas Allen, Stuart Hamilton, Liz Upchurch, Bo Skovhus and Catherine Robbin.

 

Ms. Simmons currently makes her home in Toronto, Canada.