Courtenay Budd

Courtenay Budd’s high-flying soprano (“a voice for connoisseurs”) shines in music ranging from Handel and Bach to bel canto opera and contemporary works. The Boston Globe named her "superhero soprano" after the intrepid Ms. Budd joined Boston Modern Orchestra Project, simultaneously recording and performing David Del Tredici’s 2 1/2-hour epic Child Alice, a piece which required three sopranos at its premiere thirty years prior. Allan Kozinn wrote for The Wall Street Journal that Child Alice“requires a huge orchestra. It has a central, rather gymnastic soprano line, which Ms. Budd rendered with alluring subtlety at times and ecstatic energy elsewhere.”

Following her NYC Symphony Space all-Del Tredici concert with the composer at the piano, the New York Times raved, “Ms. Budd brought gleaming sound, complete involvement and impressive stamina to both cycles, which she sang from memory. The audience gave a standing ovation to Ms. Budd and Mr. Del Tredici.” Ms. Budd, “a champion of Del Tredici’s work” has performed his music at the Guggenheim Museum, Bard Music Festival, Zankel Hall, 92nd Street ‘Y,’ Le Poisson Rouge, and Bargemusic. Her recording of his Field Manual with Fireworks Ensemble and conductor Steven Mercurio is available on eOne Records.

A Metropolitan Opera National Finalist, Ms. Budd’s operatic performances include Ilia in Idomeneo at Alice Tully Hall, Baby Doe, Zerbinetta, Zerlina, Pamina, Laurie in The Tenderland, and Marie in La fille du régiment, with such companies as Central City, Opera Omaha, Atlanta Opera, Sugar Creek Festival, and the Colorado and Charleston Symphonies.

A First Prize Winner of Young Concert Artists Auditions, Ms. Budd has been heard with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the National Symphony, Colorado Symphony, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kennedy Center, Wichita Symphony, Orlando Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, the Grand Teton Festival, and many times with the Symphony of the Americas.

Ms. Budd, long an avid recitalist and chamber musician, is now taking an increasingly active role as concert programmer. Since 2014 she has served as Artistic Director of a celebrated annual chamber music concert in Newnan, Georgia. The “Friends of Wadsworth” spring concert carries on the legacy of her mentor Charles Wadsworth, with whom Ms. Budd performed extensively, most notably for seven seasons on the Spoleto USA Dock Street Chamber Music Series.

Metropolitan Museum of Art audiences enjoyed her performances of Rachmaninoff songs on Ruth Laredo’s Concerts with Commentary series. Her recital performances with Del Tredici at Bargemusic, were praised by New Music Connoisseur as “not only beautifully expressive but impeccable in her delivery of every word and note.” She collaborated with the Bard Festival String Quartet in Schönberg’s String Quartet, #2 and Del Tredici’s I Hear an Army, and with the Saint Lawrence String Quartet in the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae.

Ms. Budd has appeared with symphony orchestras across the United States in the Requiems of Brahms and Mozart, Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915, Mozart's Mass in C Minor, Orff's Carmina Burana, Poulenc’s Gloria, Honegger’s King David, Respighi's Laud to the Nativity, Rachmaninoff's The Bells, Strauss' Brentanolieder, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, Handel’s Samson, Beethoven's Symphony #9, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bach’s Cantatas 51, 201 and 199, Schubert and Beethoven Masses, Haydn's Creation, and Britten’s War Requiem.

Her CD Sleep is Behind the Door was named “Lullaby Album of the year” by CDBaby.com, and has raised thousands in aid for victims of natural disasters. The recording was the generous collaboration of numerous artists including soprano Sylvia McNair and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Additionally, Ms. Budd appears on the VMS recording Korngold’s Hollywood Songbook with pianist Dalton Baldwin, and the BMOP release of Del Tredici's "Child Alice."

A Georgia native, Courtenay Budd was honored with the 2004 Distinguished Young Alumnus Award from and the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. She also holds a Master’s degree from Westminster Choir College and resides in New York’s Hudson Valley where she teaches on the faculty of Vassar College. In past years Ms. Budd has taught for the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, SUNY New Paltz, and Westminster Choir College. In summer of 2022 she will head the voice intensive study program of Spoleto Study Abroad, for outstanding high school students to study in Italy.