About

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Amber R. Monroe has been recognized as “a crystalline lyric soprano and a superb singing actress” (Seen and Heard-International). The 2023 - 2024 season includes company debuts with the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera singing Mimì in La bohème and with the Arizona Opera in their New Works Festival, as well as a return to The Glimmerglass Festival, reprising the role of Nedda. On the concert stage, she sings Vivaldi’s Gloria and Margaret Bonds' The Ballad of the Brown King with the Arlington Chorale and Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with Lehigh University, and appears in further concerts with the Birmingham Opera.

Announced engagements of Ms. Monroe’s 2024 - 2025 season include a highly anticipated return to Washington National Opera to perform the role of Serena in Porgy & Bess.

Ms. Monroe is a recent alumna of the Cafritz Young Artists Program at Washington National Opera, where she made her Kennedy Center debut as Ines in Il trovatore, followed by Isabelle in Carlos Simon’s The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson and Mimì in La bohème. After her time in Washington, she joined Santa Fe Opera as an Apprentice Artist, covering the Second Wood Sprite in Rusalka. Ms. Monroe was also an emerging artist with San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Opera Program, where she performed as Magda in La rondine on the Schwabacher Summer Concert and as Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites in the Merola Grand Finale concert. As a young artist with The Glimmerglass Festival, she performed as the Rooster/Jay in The Cunning Little Vixen and covered the role of Anna Sørenson in Kevin Puts’ Silent Night.

Recent performances in opera include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Opera Columbus, Nedda in Pagliacci at El Paso Opera, Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Kentucky Opera, and Clara in Porgy and Bess with Opera Western Reserve. An enthusiast of contemporary opera, Ms. Monroe originated the role of Clarissa in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’ Castor and Patience with Cincinnati Opera, and performed the title role in the Midwest premiere of Nkeiru Okoye’s Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom with Cleveland Opera Theater. She has also workshopped Jeanine Tesori’s Blue The Glimmerglass Festival and Kevin Puts’ The Hours, commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera. 

On the concert stage, she has been a featured soloist at the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Maryland for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and in Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Capital City Symphony. Other performances include Schubert’s Mass in G Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4 with the Oberlin Orchestra; Ricky Ian Gordon’s and flowers pick themselves with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra; as well as a Lincoln Center performance of Roland Carter’s Hold Fast to Dreams with the Tuskegee University Golden Voice Concert Choir.

Ms. Monroe has recently been named a 2023 winner of the Sullivan Foundation Award and the George and Nora London Foundation Competition. She is a 2021 recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from The Shoshana Foundation, and she has also received recognition in competitions such as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Opera Index Vocal Competition, the Gerda Lissner Foundation IVC, the Annapolis Opera Voice Competition, the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition with the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and the Classical Singer Competition.

Ms. Monroe completed her Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma in Opera at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. With CCM Opera, she sang the Governess in The Turn of the Screw and was scheduled to sing Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte before its cancellation due to COVID-19. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Voice from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Her work in Oberlin Opera Theater productions ranged from the main stage to contemporary operas in non-traditional venues, performing the roles of Lady Billows in Albert Herring, the Old Lady in Michael Torke’s Strawberry Fields, and Luigia in Viva la Mamma.

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