A native of South Georgia, Audrey received her Bachelor of Music degree from Simpson College and her Master of Music Degree from the University of Houston. She is also a graduate of the Improvisation Program at the Second City Training Center in Chicago as well as the Nautilus Program in Minnesota, which trains opera singers in the holistic singer-actor approach of renowned opera director Wesley Balk.

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Operatic roles of the standard repertory include Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Giovanna in Rigoletto, Mrs. DeRocher in Heggie's Dead Man Walking, Meg in Adamo's Little Women, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Prince Charming in Massenet's Cendrillon, Prinz Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Mercedes in Bizet's Carmen, Vitige in Handel’s Flavio and Zaida in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia. 

 

In addition to roles performed on the traditional operatic stage, Audrey has had especially meaningful and rewarding experiences with outreach platforms which have inspired Of Thee I Sing:  

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Portraying the role of Hansel in a touring production of Hansel and Gretel with Opera for the Young in 2011-2012, Audrey performed in dozens of school performances throughout the midwest.  Audrey was the Mezzo-Soprano Resident Artist with Shreveport Opera the following season, where, in addition to mainstage roles, she performed in hundreds of outreach productions of both The Ugly Duckling, an opera for young children, and The Final Word, an anti-bullying opera for middle school students, as well as countless concert and gala performances in libraries, senior centers, and other community venues throughout Louisiana and the greater Ark-La-Tex area.

 

Close collaboration with living American composers has also been a cherished facet of Audrey's career and, in addition to standard repertory, Audrey's resume also includes roles and songs written especially for her, notably the character Louise Whitt, sung in the debut performance of Sutures and Love, an opera by Lorne Dechtenberg, and selections from the song cycle, Songs of Sac Prairie, by composer Ronald William Hill. Since premiering the song cycle in 2011, Audrey, alongside Metropolitan Opera Bass Baritone William Powers, professionally recorded the work in 2018 with funding support from the Illinois Arts Council and the Sanfilippo Foundation. This recording is currently nominated for the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award by The American Prize. Additionally, Audrey and Mr. Powers recently premiered the cycle in orchestral form with the Wooster Symphony. 

 

For more information, including audio, video, and photo galleries:

 

 

 

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