Soprano Lesley Anne Friend has been honored as a Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards Semi-Finalist, by the Opera Birmingham Vocal Competition, Marguerite McCammon Vocal Competition, the Orpheus Competition, and the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. Her roles include the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, Giorgetta in Il Tabarro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte, Alma in Hoiby's Summer & Smoke, Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw, the title role in Tosca, Helmwige in Die Walküre, Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda, the title role in Suor Angelica, and Magda Sorel in The Consul. Lesley has worked with the Sarasota Opera, Opera Memphis, Opera on the Avalon, Seagle Music Colony, Sugar Creek Opera, and Baltimore Concert Opera.

 

Lesley has long been passionate about new works and less-performed repertoire. She has performed in regional and world premieres of works by numerous composers, including American composers Zachery Redler and Stephen Schwartz: singing Magnanimous in Windows and Myra Foster in Seance on a Wet Afternoon respectively. Her orchestral work includes Varese's Offrandes, the music of Harry Partch, and Ginastera's Cantata para América Mágica in celebration of the composer's 100th birthday at Indiana University’s Latin American Music Center. 

 

Ms. Friend sang her first Verdi Requiem with Boston’s Chorus Pro Musica and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Hartt School of Music Choirs and Orchestra and the New Haven Chorale. She has also performed Stravinsky's Pulcinella and Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer 1915 with the Indiana University Orchestra. Lesley received her B.M. cum laude in Vocal Performance from Montclair State University and her M.M. in Opera from The Boston Conservatory.

 

She currently performs with the Virginia Opera and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. She maintains a private voice studio and teaches voice and music at Norfolk State University and Elizabeth City State University.