Karen Slack

Hailed as possessing a voice of extraordinary beauty, celebrated American soprano Karen Slack is a recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera, Co-Chair of the Women’s Opera Network with Opera America, and serves on the board of the American Composer’s Orchestra. In January 2022, Slack was appointed Creative Partner with Brooklyn’s National Sawdust.

Highlights of Slack’s season include her debut at The Dallas Opera; recitals with the Miró and Pacifica Quartets, pianist Michelle Cann, and organist Alan Morrison; the premiere of Songs in Flight at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Kimmel Center; world premieres with the Nashville Symphony and Oklahoma City Philharmonic; at Carnegie Hall with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Beethoven with the Fresno Philharmonic; and productions at Dallas Opera, Portland Opera, and Edmonton Opera.

Slack has appeared with The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Scottish Opera among many others. Her debut with Opera Theatre of St. Louis originated the role of Billie in the world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Slack has performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and abroad with the Melbourne Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic.

She made her film debut as the Opera Diva in Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Slack drew on her experience in film to expand her artistic platform through premiere digital performances with Houston Grand Opera, Madison Opera, and Minnesota Opera, urbanarias, and launched her acclaimed talk show, #kikikonversations.

The native Philadelphian is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as well as the Adler Fellowship and Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera.

For more information, please visit www.sopranokarenslack.com.