Mara Riley

Soprano Mara Riley is recognized for her compelling musicality, having a particular affinity for early music, song, and ensemble singing. She is a 2024-2025 Voces8 US Scholar, and sings regularly with Emmanuel Music and Nightingale Vocal Ensemble. This season, she will sing in the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Telemann’s Don Quichotte, and will be a featured soloist with the Colorado Bach Ensemble, Boulder Bach Festival, and Rhode Island Civic Chorale & Orchestra. She was the first prize winner in the 2023 Colorado Bach Ensemble’s Young Artist Competition, and was the soprano fellow with Emmanuel Music’s Bach Institute. She has been a soloist in the Boulder Bach Festival’s Messiah, the Colorado Bach Ensemble’s Cantata Insights series, Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Back Bay Chorale, and Handel’s Samson with the Cambridge Chamber Ensemble. Favorite opera roles have included Calisto in Cavalli’s La Calisto, Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Mary Bailey in Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life. She recently completed a double MM in voice and flute performance at the New England Conservatory, and she received a double BM from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She also plays the Baroque flute, and recently performed her first St. Matthew Passion in Blue Hill, Maine!