With her versatility and a voice that has been described as “rich and dusky, but so beautifully clear and expressive,” Saskatchewan native Bonnie Cutsforth-Huber has established an active career as a mezzo/contralto in both concert and operatic repertoire. As a concert artist, she has appeared in prestigious concert spaces across the world, including Carnegie Hall (Mozart Requiem), Avery Fisher Hall (Duruflé Requiem), Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Andrew T. Miller's The Birth of Christ),and Cemal Resit Rey Hall in Istanbul, Turkey (Adnan Saygun's Yunus Emre). Her engagements include performances with the New York City Chamber Orchestra, Altoona Symphony, Nittany Valley Symphony, the Presidential Orchestra of Turkey, the Cemal Resit Rey Orchestra, Susquehanna Valley Chorale, Harford Choral Society, and The Bach Concert Series of Baltimore. She most recently appeared as the alto soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with The Defiant Requiem Foundation, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra in Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Ete, and with the Regina Symphony Orchestra as the alto soloist in the Beethoven Ninth Symphony.
Ms. Cutsforth-Huber is equally at home with contralto and mezzo-soprano operatic roles; her 2021 and 2022 engagements included the roles of Flora in La Traviata and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with Center Stage Opera. Her 2019 season included La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica and Madame in Cendrillon, both with New York Lyric Opera, and Maman/La Tasse Chinoise/La Libellule in L’Enfant et les Sortileges with Vera Causa Opera. Other notable roles include the title roles in Bizaet’s Carmen and in Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, Marcellina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Isabella in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, and Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with Amalfi Festival Opera.
Ms. Cutsforth-Huber’s interests also extend to new works. She was the mezzo soloist in the world premiere of Robert Cohen's Alzheimer’s Stories with the Susquehanna Valley Chorale. She also premiered the song cycle Something So Necessary, So Real for contralto, piano and chamber orchestra by Timothy Melbinger. In recital, she premiered a five-song concert set, Saskatchewan Songs, in which poetry written by the singer is set to music by Kingston, Ontario composer Martha Hill Duncan, and also sang the United States premiere of Triptych, a song cycle for mezzo soprano, piano, and alto saxophone by Canadian composer Lloyd Burritt.
Ms. Cutsforth-Huber is also an active scholar and teacher. She has published book reviews and articles on vocal and operatic subjects in many scholarly journals, including The Opera Journal, American Music, Music Research Forum, The Choral Journal, The Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and Classical Singer Magazine. Her work has garnered her several awards, including the National Opera Association Outstanding Dissertation Award for her dissertation, “The Operas of William Grant Still." She has served on the Board of Directors for the National Opera Association, and was also the editor of its scholarly journal, The Opera Journal from 2011 to 2016. Ms. Cutsforth-Huber has also been recognized by the National Association of Teachers of Singing, having received its prestigious Emerging Leaders Award.
Ms. Cutsforth-Huber holds a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance from the University of Saskatchewan, a Master’s degree in vocal performance from Southern Illinois University, and a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Kentucky.
Photographer: Josefina Photography