I am a soprano with many years of professional experience as a performer and teacher. Born in New Brunswick, I later moved to Toronto, Ontario to pursue my studies in music. I hold two performance diplomas, an A.R.C.T. and a Performance Licentiate, from The Royal Conservatory of Music, and an Opera Performance Diploma from the University of Toronto.

After completing my studies, I returned to New Brunswick to teach voice at Mount Allison University and l’Université de Moncton. In 2009, I was the very first to receive the J.E.A. Crake Teaching Award in the music department at Mount Allison University. I also teach privately and work with high school students who want to prepare to enter university mu-sic programs. I am also the founder and director of the well-known Voce dell’Anima Choir. I have taught courses such as Diction for Singers, Sight-singing, Dictation and Aural Skills, and have given workshops on Stage Presence, How to Practice, Options in Music, and How to Set Up a Private Studio. I adjudicate festivals and give masterclasses across the country. Several of my students have excelled, continuing on to some of the best international graduate programs, and winning prestigious awards, provincial and na-tional competitions and scholarships. Each summer, I teach at the Mount Allison Sum-mer Music Camp. I am a member and the former regional governor of CAP NATS, and member of MTA, NBMTA, CMTA and the Canadian Adjudicator’s Music Association.

I have appeared in several opera productions and recitals across Canada. In 1998, I per-formed as Mimi in Opera New Brunswick’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème. For the Canadian 150th Anniversary, I performed with the NBYO who commissioned a piece by Canadian composer Howard Shore who composed the music for Lord of the Ring. I have toured with Ventus Machina Quintet and will be touring with them again in 2019/2020. In August 2019, I performed the role of Mlle Philomène in the Oratorio La Vallée des possibles written by Jean-François Mallet.

Since teaching is my passion, I am dedicated to continually educating myself in the latest classical, musical theatre and pop vocal techniques, new developments in vocal health, and diction for singers.

Maureen Batt is celebrated for her “rich, warm sound and masterful acting” (Opera Canada). Recently, Maureen’s solo career has focused on promoting Canadian classical contemporary repertoire by collaborating with established and emerging composers to commission, première, and re-perform their works. Her debut album, Lady of the Lake (Leaf Music/Naxos, June 2017) includes song cycles by Schubert and Halifax-based composer Fiona Ryan and was nominated for Classical Recording of the Year (2018) by ECMA and Music Nova Scotia.

Maureen is the co-artistic director of Essential Opera—an opera company founded in 2010 with Erin Bardua—and part of the Indie Opera Toronto collective. In 2015, Maureen founded Crossing Borders, a contemporary classical recital series which has toured programs of art song, opera arias, musical theatre, and electronics to the United States and Canada. This past fall, she toured Colombia with a program featuring Canadian and Colombian composers.

Her formal training includes a Master of Music from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Music from Dalhousie University, and a Bachelor of Arts from St. Thomas University (French and Spanish). She has been the recipient of awards from the SOCAN Foundation, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, SSHRC, FACTOR, Music Nova Scotia, and Arts Nova Scotia.

She has been engaged by the Open Waters Festival, Orchestra Toronto, Classics by the Bay, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, VoiceBox, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Maritime Concert Opera, Opera Nova Scotia, New Hamburg Live!, Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, Whale Song Theatre, The Toy Piano Composers, and recently performed as part of Neptune Theatre’s bonus features with her trio Diva Station.

Memorable opera credits from the standard repertoire include Musetta, La Bohème (Puccini), Susanna, Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart); Zerlina, Don Giovanni (Mozart); Despina, Così fan tutte (Mozart); Belinda, Dido and Aeneas (Purcell); Yum-Yum, The Mikado (Sullivan), Polly, The Threepenny Opera (Weill); Morgana, Alcina (Händel); Nina, Chérubin (Massenet). She has also created many Canadian opera roles, including Helen in Monica Pearce’s Aunt Helen, about the folklorist Helen Creighton, and Sister Mary Francis in Elizabeth Raum’s opera, Time of Trouble, about the founding of Mount Saint Vincent University.

Maureen has been on faculty at the Halifax Summer Opera Festival for Massenet’s Cendrillon, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Händel’s Alcina, and returns this year for Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and John Blow’s Venus and Adonis. She is a frequent festival adjudicator, and offers masterclasses and workshops in the Maritimes and Toronto. Maureenbatt.com • FB: /maureenbattsoprano • Twitter: @operaredhead • Insta: @Maureenbattsoprano