Miriam Khalil

Soprano Miriam Khalil has established herself as one of Canada’s most versatile and expressive performers. She has become increasingly known for her non-traditional performances of opera, art song, and concert repertoire. Miriam’s 2022/2023 season includes concert engagements with the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (Gorecki’s Third Symphony), the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony), the Newfoundland Symphony (Handel’s Messiah), and a role and house debut as Leïla in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers with Vancouver Opera. Notable roles include Mimì in La Bohème (Canadian Opera Company, Minnesota Opera, Opera Hamilton, Edmonton Opera, Against the Grain Theatre (AtG)); Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera Tampa, AtG, The Banff Centre, Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival and next season with Edmonton Opera); Marzelline in Fidelio (Pacific Opera Victoria), Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (Pacific Opera Victoria, Opera Lyra, AtG), and Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, U.K.).  

Miriam was nominated for a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year for Ayre: Live, a song cycle by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. Ayre has since become a signature piece with which she made her South American debut, premiering the cycle in Buenos Aires at the Kirchner Cultural Centre. She has also sung Ayre to critical acclaim in Banff, Ottawa Toronto and Victoria; to open the prestigious Rockport Music Festival in the USA, as well as the 21C Music Festival at Toronto’s Koerner Hall in 2020. Miriam also received a Juno nomination for her role as a soloist in AtG’s acclaimed Messiah/Complex.  

The soprano is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, the Steans Institute for Young Artists (Ravinia) and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme in England. While in her last year of the COC Ensemble Studio, she advanced to the semi-finals of the Metropolitan Opera Council auditions and represented the Great Lakes Region on the Met stage, during which she was featured in the documentary film The Audition. She is a recipient of multiple awards and grants from the George London Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Scholarships. 

Miriam is a proud founding member and Associate Artistic Director of the Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning chamber opera company Against the Grain Theatre, and recently joined the Voice Faculty at the University of Alberta, where she is very excited to be working with the next generation of singing artists and creators.