Soprano Sara Hershkowitz

Described by Opernwelt as possessing “a flexible, beautiful voice with a huge presence like a beautiful, wild animal”, Sara Hershkowitz has become increasingly known as one of the most electrifying and original interpreters of her generation. An artist of unusual versatility, Ms. Hershkowitz has received acclaim for her interpretations of Baroque and Mozart roles. In recent years she has taken a special interest in twentieth and twenty-first century composers.

A Los Angeles native, Sara Hershkowitz is a three-time nominee in Opernwelt for Singer of the Year, the most recent being in 2020 for her portrayal of Sopran 1 in Luigi Nono’s Al Gran Sole Carico d’Amore at Theater Basel. Past nominations were for her roles as Zaide in Chaya Czernowin/W.A. Mozart’s Zaide-Adama, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Theater Bremen.

Ms. Hershkowitz starts her 2022-2023 season with her debut as Cleopatra in J.H. Hasse’s Marc Antonio e Cleopatra, with the NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra and David Stern conducting. In the same season she will perform Mysteries of the Macabre by György Ligeti at the Cologne Philharmonie, with Matthias Pintcher conducting the Gürzenich-Orchestra Köln. In November of 2023, Ms. Hershkowitz will perform Samuel Barber’s Knoxeville Summer of 1915 with the Amarillo Symphony with George Jackson conducting, with a special bluegrass surprise of original music written by Sara Hershkowitz and Max Hoetzel. Also in 2023, on the Naxos label, Ms. Hershkowitz will release an album of art songs by the composer Erich Zeisl, together with pianist Gloria Cheng.

In her 2021-2022 season Ms. Hershkowitz made her debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw as Gepopo/Venus in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre with conductor James Gaffigan. In the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Hershkowitz received critical acclaim for the role of Sopran 1 in Luigi Nono’s Al Gran Sole Carico D’Amore at Theater Basel. In the same season, she was a guest soloist with BBC Scottish Symphony performing Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre, and additionally sang the world premiere of composer Michael Wertmüller’s Wir Sind So Frei at the Köln Philharmonie. In January 2020 Ms. Hershkowitz sang a Liederabend with pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja, featuring the previously unknown works second- viennese school composer, Philip Hershkowitz, including works by his teacher, Alban Berg, at ORF Radio Wien. Additional debuts scheduled for 2020 included the role of the Maid in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face, at Opera de Tours, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Five Songs After Sappho with the London Philharmonia, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Theater Bonn, and the role debut of Cleopatra in Händel’s Giulio Cesare with Opera Fuoco at the Hannover Herrenhaus.

Highlights of the 2018-2019 season included debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Yuval Sharon staging of John Cage’s Europeras, the creation of the role of Claire Claremont in the world premiere of Michael Wertmüller’s Diodati.Unendlich at Theater Basel, Vivaldi’s Gloria with conductor Nicholas McGegan and the Detroit Symphony, Unsuk Chin’s Acrostic Word Play and Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre, together with conductor Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic.

In the 2017-2018 season, Sara Hershkowitz thrilled audiences and critics alike performing her own controversial staging of Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre together with the Noord Netherlands Orchestra. In the same season she made her debut with New Orleans Opera as Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. In 2016-17 she performed Zerbinetta in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos for the Nordnorsk Opera og Symfonieorkester.

As a former principal artist at the Bremen Opera, Ms. Hershkowitz sang such roles as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, the Governess in Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Gepopo/Venus in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, and the title role of Zaide in Chaya Czernowin/W.A. Mozart’s Zaide-Adama.

Sara Hershkowitz has been a frequent guest with David Stern’s Paris-based baroque ensemble Opera Fuoco, with whom she performed the title role in the recently re-discovered J.C. Bach Opera Zanaida, which toured the Leipzig Bach Festival and the Wiener Konzerthaus.

Ms. Hershkowitz was a member of the Salzburger Festspiele Young Singers Project, the Academie Lyrique at Aix-en-Provence and received her B.A. From the Manhattan School of Music. 

Also a prolific writer and singer-songwriter, Sara Hershkowitz performs and recording americana/bluegrass music under the artist name Sara Shiloh Rae. Together with her band, Bluebird Junction, she has been twice featured in Bluegrass Today, the world’s largest Bluegrass publication. Her debut album of original compositions, the self-titled Sara Shiloh Rae &Bluebird Junction, was released in 2020. In 2023, the band released a new EP, a highly original take on songs by Stephen Sondheim, arranged for americana/bluegrass-inspired stringband.