Dawn Upshaw was born on July 17, 1960, and is an American soprano. She has won several Grammy Awards and recorded many discs that have received Edison Awards. She performs opera and art songs, and her singing includes music from the Baroque period to modern times. Many composers, such as Henri Dutilleux, Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Bruce, John Adams, and Kaija Saariaho, have created music specifically for her. In 2007, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2006, she started the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and was the artistic director until 2019. She now leads the Vocal Arts Program at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Early life

Upshaw was born in Nashville, Tennessee. She began singing while attending Rich East High School in Park Forest, Illinois. She was the only female chosen to join the top choir, called the Singing Rockets, during her second year of high school, according to choir director Douglas Ulreich. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982 from Illinois Wesleyan University, where she studied voice with Dr. David Nott. Later, she studied voice with Ellen Faull at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City and received a Master of Music degree in 1984. She also took classes taught by Jan DeGaetani at the Aspen Music School. Upshaw won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1984 and the Walter M. Naumburg Competition in 1985. She was part of the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Development Program. Since 1984, she has performed more than 300 times at the Metropolitan Opera.

Career

Dawn Upshaw became well-known worldwide for her performance on the 1992 recording that sold millions of copies. This recording featured Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3, also called the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Symfonia pieśni żałosnych), and was conducted by David Zinman.

She has introduced more than 25 new musical works to audiences. These include Dutilleux's song-cycle Correspondances. She has also performed pieces written specifically for her, such as Saariaho's Grawemeyer Award-winning opera L'Amour de loin, John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, John Adams's nativity oratorio El Niño, and Osvaldo Golijov's highly praised chamber opera Ainadamar and song cycle Ayre. In 2009, she performed David Bruce's song cycle The North Wind was a Woman during the opening concert of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's season.

In addition to her operatic recordings, she sang the lead role in the first complete recording of Gershwin's Oh, Kay!. She has also recorded songs by Vernon Duke and Rodgers and Hart. Upshaw was a guest at a special Christmas event hosted by President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton on NBC's Christmas in Washington. The BBC broadcast a prime-time television program of her 1996 London Proms concert, Dawn at Dusk, where she performed songs from American musical theater. Her long-term collaborations with James Levine led to a 1997 recording of songs by Claude Debussy.

Upshaw is featured on a Christmas music album with the male vocal ensemble Chanticleer, titled Christmas with Chanticleer, which includes her as a special guest.

She regularly performs with pianist Gilbert Kalish. Richard Goode and Margo Garrett have also been longtime collaborators. She has worked with director Peter Sellars on several projects, including a production of Handel's Theodora at Glyndebourne, a version of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in Paris, a performance of Bach's cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199 at New York's 92nd Street Y, and a staging of Olivier Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise at the Salzburg Festival in 1998. Upshaw has frequently performed as a soloist at the Ojai Music Festival in California, most recently in 2006, 2008, and 2009. In 2011, she directed the festival and performed the world premiere of a production of George Crumb's Winds of Destiny. She joined the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as an artistic partner starting in the 2007–08 season. In 2006, she created the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and served as its artistic director until 2019, when Stephanie Blythe took over. She currently leads the Vocal Arts Program at Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Upshaw has received honorary doctorates of arts from Yale University, the Manhattan School of Music, Illinois Wesleyan University, and Allegheny College. She is an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 2020 to 2026.

Personal life

Upshaw is a divorced mother of two children. She lives near New York City. In 2006, she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and received treatment for it.

Awards and recognition

1989 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist
• Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Music by Barber, Menotti, Harbison, and Stravinsky)

1991 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist
• The Girl with Orange Lips (Music by Falla, Ravel, and others)

2003 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance
• The Kronos Quartet and Dawn Upshaw for Berg: Lyric Suite

2006 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording
• The Atlanta Symphony and chorus, with Dawn Upshaw, for Golijov: Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears)

2007 MacArthur Fellowship

2014 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist
• Winter Morning Walks (Music by Maria Schneider)

Selected discography

• 1990: Works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier include Te Deum H.146 and Magnificat H.74. The performance features Kurt Moll (bass), John Aler (tenor), Dawn Upshaw (soprano), Ethna Robinson (contralto), and Ann Muray (soprano and contralto). The Academy of St Martin in the Fields was conducted by Neville Marriner. This recording was released on a CD by EMI Classics in 1991.
• 1991: Le Nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was conducted by James Levine. The recording was released by Deutsche Grammophon with catalog number 435 488-2.
• 1992: Chérubin by Jules Massenet was conducted by Pinchas Steinberg. The recording was released on an RCA Victor Red Seal CD with catalog number 09026-60593-2.
• 1992: Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Górecki was recorded on a CD by Nonesuch/Elektra Records with catalog number 79282.
• 2005: James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996) was released on a DVD by Deutsche Grammophon with catalog number B0004602-09.
• 2005: Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov was recorded on a CD by Deutsche Grammophon with catalog number 00289 477 5414.