BIOGRAPHY
Noted for her “playful performance” and wit on stage, French American Mezzo-Soprano Sarah Scofield is a versatile artist dedicated to telling stories to and for anyone who will listen.
Sarah began her 2023/24 season by competing in the Metropolitan Opera’s Dominique Laffont competition, where she was named a winner of the Utah District. Later that same month she made her Utah Symphony debut performing as the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah.
As a Utah Opera Resident Artist in the 2023/24 season, Sarah made her professional operatic debut singing the role of the Fox in Utah Opera’s beloved production of Rachel Portman and Nicholas Wright’s The Little Prince. She covered the role of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and will perform the role of Myrtale in Thaïs this May.
Sarah will return to Utah Opera in the 2024/25 season to appear as Der Sandmann in Hänsel und Gretel, while also covering the title role of Hänsel, and will perform as Kate Pinkerton in Matthew Ozawa’s critically acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly.
While pursuing her Master’s degree at University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Sarah performed the role of Uta Hagen in a workshop of Scott Davenport’s opera Robeson in Moscow with Cincinnati Opera Fusion: New Works. She also appeared as Narciso in Handel’s Agrippina. In an unintentional survey of principal female roles without names, Sarah’s other operatic credits include Messaggiera (the Messenger) in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Die Zweite Dame (the second lady) in Die Zauberflöte, and The Foreign Woman in the The Consul.
A lover of song, Sarah has spent summers at Songfest as a Stern Fellow and at the Music Academy of the West. As a Stern Fellow, Sarah premiered Anna Weesner’s 3 Simple Songs, appeared alongside Graham Johnson in a recital focusing on Schubert Lieder, appeared alongside John Musto in Paris, Berlin, New York, and performed selections from Jake Heggie’s “What I Miss the Most” in a concert curated by the composer.
Fiercely dedicated to cultivating accessible musical experiences, Sarah regularly appears in performances which center disability and neurodiversity. This season Sarah will perform in Access to Music with the Utah Symphony, a performance of opera scenes which is free and accessible to disabled students in the state of Utah. In 2023, she appeared with the Cincinnati Song Initiative in Beautiful Small Things, as a part of the LYNX Project’s Amplify Series; performing settings of texts by non-speaking autistic youth. Sarah also appeared in Spectral Sights and Sounds, a collage of theater and song detailing the lived experience of autism.
A firm believer in the creation of music as an act of service and activism, Sarah was featured as a performer during the 2018 Lawrence University Refugee Symposium. Following discussion by an esteemed panel of experts, Sarah sang the U.S. premier of Beneath the Azure Sky. This chamber piece rebelliously sets poems of Afghani refugee women, who were prevented from learning to read and write.
When not singing Sarah can be found neglecting her houseplants, perfecting her bagel making skills, or with her phone pressed to her ear, straining to hear whale song as a participant in the citizen science initiative: OrcaSoundLab. She is currently based in Salt Lake City with her dog Cricket and her substantial postcard collection.
Sarah is an alumna of the University of Cincinnati-CCM. She is indebted to her teachers Nova Thomas, William McGraw, Quinn Patrick Ankrum, and Joanne Bozeman.