Morgan Balfour
Morgan Balfour
[San Francisco]
Australian soprano Morgan Balfour joined Lyric Opera of Kansas City as their Soprano Resident Artist for the 2019/2020 season. During this time, she covered Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Musetta in La Boheme and will perform Mrs Grady in rescheduled performances of The Shining.
With a strong affinity for early music, Morgan was the 2019 Handel Aria Competition 1st Prize winner, will be a Virginia Best Adams Fellow at the 2020 Carmel Bach Festival, and is scheduled to perform a recital with Ensemble Moliére at the London Handel Festival. She has previously performed the role of Cephise in Pinchgut Opera's production of Pigmalion, and Honour in Brisbane Baroque Festival's King Arthur.
As a concert singer and performer of oratorio, Morgan has appeared with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (2019 Noël Noël tour), California Bach Society (2019 Bach's Magnificat and Zelenka's Missa Divi Xaverii), American Bach Soloists (2018 Summer Festival), Canberra Symphony Orchestra (2018 Prom's Concert), Sydney Philharmonia (2017 Tudor Portraits), Brisbane Baroque Festival (2016 Vivaldi Women of the Pieta) and appeared at the 2016 Coriole Music Festival and 2015 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival.
Engaged as an AGMA chorister with the San Francisco Symphony for their 2018/2019 season, Morgan also performed as a member of Ragnar Bohlin’s vocal ensemble, Capella SF, and appeared as Voice of the Dawn in La Rondine with San Francisco'a Pocket Opera.
“...With a lovely, highly listenable voice and outstanding responsiveness to word and mood, she was thoroughly wonderful…”
TRAINING
Morgan holds a Master's Degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with César Ulloa, and a Bachelor's Degree from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, where she studied with Joseph Ward OBE. For the San Francisco Conservatory, Morgan appeared as the title role in Rodelinda, Younger Alyce in Glory Denied, Governess in The Turn of the Screw, and Meleagro in Atalanta. She performed Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro for the Queensland Conservatorium.
She is also an alumna of the Melba Opera Trust (Amelia Joscelyne Memorial Scholar), the Lisa Gasteen National Opera School and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival (Professional Fellow) where she performed the role of Pamina in Die Zauberflöte.
AWARDS
In the United States, Morgan received 1st Place at the 2019 Handel Aria Competition, 2nd Place at the 2020 Grand Junction Symphony Young Artist Competition, 2nd Place at the 2018 East Bay Opera League Competition, and is a two-time recipient of the Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and the Tony Cuevas Award from the Holt Competition.
At home, Morgan has been a finalist and prizewinner in all of Australia's largest singing competitions, including the IFAC Australian Singing Competition, Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award, German-Australian Opera Grant, Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship, and Joan Carden Award. In 2016, she was the recipient of the Australian Opera Awards Committee’s Sheila Prior Memorial Scholarship for special operatic talent.
REVIEWS
“Morgan Balfour charmed the audience with her smile and lustrous tone. Her natural florid passages and new ornamentation in Handel’s ‘Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion’ from ‘Messiah’ demonstrated excellent technique and attention to historically informed practice." - Australian Stage, December 2019.
“Morgan Balfour shone again… demonstrating impressive vocal control and dynamic sensitivity.” - San Francisco Classical Voice, October 2019.
“Soprano Morgan Balfour sang with thrilling clarity” - Sydney Morning Herald, August 2017.
"Morgan Balfour makes for a melancholy, sweet-toned Céphise.” - Limelight, May 2017."
Meleagro was sung in a trousers role by soprano Morgan Balfour, who right from the outset wowed the audience with her brilliant coloratura. Balfour’s voice is rich in color and her technique is impeccable." - The Berkeley Daily Planet, March 2017.