Mezzo-soprano Emily Cottam is a promising young mezzo-soprano hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah. She looks forward to joining Nashville Opera as a Mary Ragland Emerging Artist for their 2021 season, performing as Giovanna in Rigoletto (Cancelled due to COVID-19), Tisbe in La Cenerentola (covering Cenerentola), and Cherubino in Davies’ educational outreach show, The Three Little Pigs.
Most recently, in the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Cottam was an Emerging Artist at Seagle Music Colony for their summer season in Schroon Lake, NY, where she performed as Dora in The Manchurian Candidate, Peron’s Mistress in Evita, and Ensemble in Oklahoma! Following her engagements at Seagle, she joined Tri-Cities Opera as a Resident Artist, where she performed the title role in Davies’ Pinocchio and Ensemble in Tosca. She was scheduled to perform as Charlotte in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music before cancellation due to COVID-19.
Other recent operatic credits include the title role in Handel’s Xerxes; Street Singer in Leonard Bernstein’s MASS; the title role in the workshop production of Marie Begins; Hermia in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen; La Marchande in Les mamelles de Tiresias; Ramiro in La finta giardiniera; Melissa in Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina; Angelina’s Council in Trial by Jury; and Miss Penelope Newkirk in Help, Help, The Globolinks!
Ms. Cottam was a featured soloist in the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) concert series in Graz, Austria, and was a semi-finalist in the AIMS Meistersinger Competition.
Cottam holds a Master’s of Music degree in Opera Performance from Arizona State University and received her Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from Utah State University with a minor in Theatre Arts. She graduated with honors as a Caine Scholar and was the Caine College of the Arts and Utah State University Valedictorian.