Soprano Sarah Hawkey is known for her ability to make early music feel intimate, vivid, and alive for today’s audiences.

She has performed with major organizations including the New York Philharmonic and LA Opera, with appearances at the Salzburg Festival, the Verbier Festival, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, Bard Summerscape, and in numerous performances at Carnegie Hall. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, on NPR and WNYC, and on PBS Great Performances.

A specialist in 17th- and 18th-century repertoire, Sarah is particularly recognized for her interpretations of the music of Barbara Strozzi. Sarah is currently embarking on her first recording projects. Her debut solo album, featuring the music of 17th-century Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi, will explore the emotional range and expressive freedom of one of the most compelling women’s voices of the Italian Baroque. This will be followed by an album of English baroque works by Henry Purcell, John Dowland, and their contemporaries.

Sarah appeared in the original cast of p r i s m, a world-premiere opera produced by Beth Morrison Projects in collaboration with LA Opera and the PROTOTYPE Festival. Composed by Ellen Reid, p r i s m was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music and has been widely recognized for its impact and innovation in contemporary opera.

Since the launch of her solo career in 2016, Sarah’s concert repertoire has included the modern-day premiere of Freschi’s Giuditta; numerous cantatas by J.S. Bach, as well as the St. John Passion, Mass in B minor, Magnificat, and Missa Brevis; Vivaldi’s In furore iustissimae irae and Dixit Dominus; Scarlatti’s Lidio e Clori; Handel’s Messiah and Dixit Dominus; Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Requiem; and Haydn’s Mass for Mariazell and Creation Mass.

Sarah is also a champion of contemporary classical music. Her world premiere performances include Amie Morrison’s Surprisingly Poetic Moments from an Otherwise Typical Hiking Guidebook (inspired by her love of Yosemite’s high-country wilderness), Pamela Stein-Lynde’s Trespass (poetry by Sokunthary Svay about growing up as a refugee in New York City) and I will not go, and Gisle Kverndokk’s opera Upon This Handful of Earth. She also premiered numerous choral works through her tenure at the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street and many other professional choral ensembles in the US.

Sarah is a recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study the life and work of J.S. Bach with leading Bach scholars in Germany, deepening her engagement with his vocal music in historical context.

Sarah is the founder of Blossom Voice Studio in Weston, Connecticut, and has led educational programs and workshops at The Juilliard School, Princeton University, and William Paterson University.

Recent Recordings

Favorites of late Renaissance to early baroque song, all recorded live