Elizabeth Bishop

American mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Bishop (MM ’91, voice) is enjoying a long career on the opera stages and concert halls of the world, including San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Pittsburgh Opera, Dallas Opera, Atlanta Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Palm Beach Opera, and Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Italy. Among the orchestras she has performed with are the Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Netherlands. She has recorded with San Francisco Opera and Atlanta Symphony and won a Grammy for her work in the Ring cycle with the Metropolitan Opera in 2012. A graduate of Furman University (double BA in music and political science) and Juilliard, Bishop won the 1993 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and joined the San Francisco Opera as an Adler Fellow following year.

Widely sought-after as a teacher and master class clinician, Bishop has taught at Palm Beach Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music, Furman, Virginia Opera, Duke University, George Mason University, Bel Canto in Tuscany, NATS, and Washington National Opera Institute for Young Singers. Her discovery of a need for advanced training that caters to emerging singers outside the traditional pathway to a career helped propel her to create and direct the Potomac Vocal Institute (PVI) to train young singers in an innovative and practical setting, and her motto, “Singing is simple, discipline is hard,” sets the tone for both her flourishing private studio and PVI. Bishop’s students have sung at Washington National Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Washington Concert Opera, Annapolis Opera, Baltimore Concert Opera, Opera Delaware, Virginia Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Painted Sky Opera, Opera San Jose, Opera Memphis, Santa Fe Opera, and Theater Aachen.