About this Artist
Two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been called a “luminous standout” (New York Times) and “equal parts poise, radiance and elegant directness” (Opera News). Ms. Cooke is sought after by the world’s leading orchestras, opera companies, and chamber music ensembles for her versatile repertoire and commitment to new music.
In the 2020-2021 season, Ms. Cooke sings a solo recital at Houston Grand Opera with pianist Kirill Kuzmin, performs Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Vasily Petrenko and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and joins the Cincinnati May Festival for a performance of Copland’s Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson. She also makes her debut at Bard SummerScape as Genièvre in Chausson’s Le roi Arthus, sings Jan Arnold in a new recording of Joby Talbot’s Everest with Opera Parallèle, and returns to Dallas Opera for a Pops Concert alongside soprano Deanna Breiwick and baritone Lucas Meacham. Previously scheduled engagements include appearances at the Metropolitan Opera as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, at Dallas Opera as Sylvie in the world premiere of Talbot’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and at San Francisco Opera as Offred in Poul Ruder’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Concert performances were to include Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Orchestre National de France under the direction of Trevor Pinnock, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Minnesota Orchestra and music director Osmo Vänskä, and a duo recital tour alongside soprano Susanna Phillips.
During the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Cooke returned to the San Francisco Opera to reprise the title role in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, and was scheduled to perform Laurene Jobs in Mason Bates’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, a role she created in 2017 at Santa Fe Opera. Her orchestral appearances included Ravel’s Shéhérazade with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest under conductor James Gaffigan, Mahler’s Das klagende Lied and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht with the Houston Symphony under music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Meditations on Rilke with the Cleveland Orchestra under composer and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, and a concert version of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana with the Chicago Symphony under the baton of Riccardo Muti. Other scheduled appearances included reuniting with Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic for concerts of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 Resurrection at David Geffen Hall (New York), Barbican Hall (London), and The Royal Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), as well as Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honneck as well as the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Spano, both in Atlanta and on tour at Carnegie Hall in New York. Ms. Cooke also undertook a residency with the San Francisco Symphony that encompassed concerts with the orchestra, educational events, chamber music performances, and a solo recital in Davies Hall. In recital, she returned to London’s Wigmore Hall with pianist Malcolm Martineau for songs of Brahms and Schumann, and performed at New York’s 92nd Street Y and the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater in Washington, D.C., alongside pianist Julius Drake featuring Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, Schumann’s Frauenliebe und –leben and Zwölf Gedichte nach Justinus Kerner. Finally, Ms. Cooke sang the world premiere of Jake Heggie/Gene Scheer’s Violins of Hope with violinist Daniel Hope for Music at Kohl Mansion in California, and was scheduled to perform a solo recital of songs by Fauré, Debussy, Berlioz, Schumann, and Beethoven, at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Ms. Cooke has performed with opera companies worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Israeli Opera, and English National Opera. During her career, she has been engaged by over 60 orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, New Zealand Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal, New World Symphony, under leading conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Edo de Waart, Trevor Pinnock, Harry Bicket, Pinchas Zukerman, Gerard Schwarz, Riccardo Frizza, Sir Mark Elder, and Krzysztof Urbański. Ms. Cooke has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill and Zankel Halls, Palau de la Música de València, Hollywood Bowl, Theater an der Wien, Alice Tully Hall, Auditorio Nacional de Música, Elbphilharmonie, and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Previous festival appearances have included the Spoleto Festival USA, Aspen Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, New York Festival of Song, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. A devoted interpreter of new music, Ms. Cooke has premiered works by Mark Adamo, Mason Bates, William Bolcom, Pierre Jalbert, Laura Kaminsky, Lowell Liebermann, Nico Muhly, John Musto, Marc Neikrug, Kevin Puts, Augusta Read Thomas, and Joby Talbot.
Ms. Cooke’s recordings can be found on the Hyperion, BIS, Chandos, Naxos, Bridge Records, Yarlung, GPR Records, and Sono Luminus labels. Most recently, she appears on five new recordings including Berlioz’s L'enfance du Christ with Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony, Bates' The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, which won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 Resurrection with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra, Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, and Sasha Cooke LIVE, a collection of her performances from the Music@Menlo chamber music festival. On DVD, Ms. Cooke can be seen in a new production of Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera and the Grammy Award-winning production of Doctor Atomic under conductor Alan Gilbert.
Sasha Cooke is a graduate of Rice University and The Juilliard School. She also attended the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute, Wolf Trap Foundation, Marlboro Music Festival, Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and Seattle Opera and Central City Opera’s Young Artist Training Programs.