Amber Wagner

A native of the State of Oregon, Amber Wagner studied voice with Dr Sheila Corley at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. She has to her credit a long list of concert and recital appearances on the West Coast and in the Southwest of the United States. Among other parts, she has sung solos in John Rutter’s cantata Magnificat, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, or Rossini’s Stabat Mater. A regular entrant of singing contests, Amber Wagner recently won the competition organized by the New York-based Liederkranz Foundation, received the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, and was granted a Sullivan Foundation scholarship. Her other achievements include laureateships from Palm Beach Opera and Palm Springs Opera contests, the obtainment of a Lynne Harvey Scholarship granted by the Musician Club of Women, and victory in the competition organized by the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation. In 2007 Amber Wagner won the coveted Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Finals contest, and appeared in the documentary The Audition, showing the course of the competition, which was screened in 2009. The L.A. Splash Magazine´s critic lauded her strong and sparkling voice carrying effortlessly over the orchestra. Since 2007, Amber Wagner has been a member of the Patrick G. and Shirley Ryan Opera Studio at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, on whose stage she appeared as the Voice of an Unborn Child in Strauss’ opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, in a production staged by Paul Curran, as well as being cast in the role of Berta in the company’s student matinée showings of Il barbiere di Siviglia. In the 2008/2009 season, she sang Kate Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and rehearsed for the parts of Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana.

The 2009/2010 season was Amber Wagner’s third and last season with the Lyric Opera’s Studio. She studied the role of Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani in a new production conducted by Renato Palumbo, and under the baton of Markus Stenz sung Fekluša in Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová. She made her debut appearance in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Grant Park Festival, and sung in Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, both conducted by Carlos Kalmar. In the 2010/2011 season, the artist is making her comeback onto the stage of the Lyric Opera in Chicago, as Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin, and to work with conductor Asher Fisch on the part of Amelia in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. On the concert platform, she will reappear at the Grant Park Festival, in Beethoven’s Mass in C major under Carlos Kalmar’s baton. She will likewise appear in a concert production of Wagner’s Die Walküre, as Sieglinda.