~ photo by Brian Hatton ~

Welcome

Soprano, Lisa Williamson, is a young artist who has forged a distinctive career that has taken her from the stages of Minato Mirai Hall in Yokohama, Japan to the Indianapolis Brickyard.

In 2012, Ms. Williamson will sing Despina in Cosi fan tutte and Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia with Yale Opera and will be a young artist with the Glimmerglass Festival. She has recently been on stage as Musetta in Act III of La Boheme with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the First Witch, Second Woman, and Spirit in Dido & Aeneas and Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Yale Opera and Eileen Sherwood in Wonderful Town with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, Italy. Past performances include Maria in the world premiere of Margot Alone in the Light and Rosa in the reading of Paradises Lost with Operamission, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with UConn Opera Theater, and the Sandman and Dew Fairy in Hänsel and Gretel with Opera Theater of Connecticut.

Active on the concert and recital stages she has performed soprano solos in Mozart's Requiem, Handel's Messiah, Bach's Magnificat, Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Robert Kapilow's Green Eggs and Ham, and Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. She has been heard in recital with the Heritage Recital Series, Columbia Recital Series, The Coast Guard Band Chamber Players, and the Wesleyan University Recital Series.

From 2005-2010, Ms. Williamson was the vocal soloist with The United States Coast Guard Band. In this versatile and high-profile position she sang for Presidents, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all Secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security. She performed at the state funeral of President Gerald Ford and was featured in the 2009 National Cherry Blossom Festival. In 2006 and 2007 she performed the National Anthem at the Indianapolis 500 for live audiences of over 400,000 people. In her more than two hundred performances with the Coast Guard Band she performed in thirty-four states in the U.S. and Japan singing patriotic songs, opera arias, classical chamber works, and the American Songbook. She is featured on six Coast Guard Band recordings including the 2009 release, Live in Japan, and 2008's Baby, It's Cold Outside.

Ms. Williamson is pursuing a Master of Music in voice at the Yale School of Music, where she studies with Doris Yarick-Cross. She holds a Performer's Certificate from the University of Connecticut and a Bachelor of Music in voice performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University. Her teachers have included Constance Rock, Patricia Schuman, Stanley Cornett, and Tricia Lepofsky. She has been a young artist with Chautauqua Opera and Connecticut Opera and has sung in master classes under the guidance of Marilyn Horne, Kristin Chenoweth, Jay Lesenger, and John Shirley-Quirk. Ms. Williamson has been a finalist in competitions with the Connecticut Opera Guild, Annapolis Opera, the Philharmonic Society of Arlington, and Lakes Region Opera.

Lisa grew up in Alexandria, Virginia and now lives in Connecticut with her husband, Adam, who is the tenor saxophonist with the United States Coast Guard Band.