Lauren Kelly 

Lauren Kelly is an American mezzo-soprano celebrated for her expressive, stylistically grounded singing in baroque and contemporary repertoire. A passionate interpreter of Bach, she has recently been a finalist in the National American Oratorio Competition and served as mezzo soloist in major works including the Christmas Oratorio, Easter Oratorio, and St. Matthew Passion. She is equally at home in new music, recently taking on the title role in Sarah Kirkland Snider's Penelope with the Portland Bach Experience, a landmark 60-minute mezzo song cycle reimagining Homer's Odyssey through the eyes of its women, and making her Carnegie Hall solo debut in Gabriela Ortiz's Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness. This season, she appears as mezzo soloist in an upcoming performance of BWV 78 with the Philadelphia Bach Collective and in Handel's Messiah with Ensemble Altera.

A dedicated ensemble singer, Lauren is a member of Lorelei Ensemble, Variant 6, and the GRAMMY award–winning choir The Crossing. She also performs regularly with Montana's Roots in the Sky, fulfilling her dream of singing baroque and contemporary music in the mountains.

She holds a BM in Voice Performance from Westminster Choir College and an MM in Voice and Opera from Northwestern University. When she's not singing, she's likely hiking a mountain trail with her husband and rescue dog, or chasing down her next rollercoaster credit.