Miriam khalil
A two-time Juno nominated artist, Miriam Khalil has established herself as one of Canada’s most versatile and expressive performers. She is sought after for her interpretation of the works of Golijov, Puccini and Mozart, among others. Recently, Khalil appeared as the soprano soloist in the world premiere of Karim Al-Zand’s Al Hakawati with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which she then reprises with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. Also on the concert stage, the 2024/2025 season sees reengagements with the Richard Eaton Singers (Fauré’s Requiem), Symphony Nova Scotia (Handel’s Messiah), and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Poulenc’s Gloria).
Last season, Miriam returned to Pacific Opera Victoria for Margarita Xirgu in Golijov’s Ainadamar, Symphony Nova Scotia for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Edmonton Opera for her renowned interpretation of Golijov’s song cycle Ayre. Miriam joined Beth Morrison Projects for the world premiere of Kouyoumdjian’s Adoration for the 2024 PROTOTYPE Festival, where she received great acclaim for her portrayal of Sabine. She revisits the work this season with Los Angeles Opera, marking her debut with the company.
In 2019, Miriam produced and was nominated for a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral, for her debut album Ayre: Live, a song cycle by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. With this song cycle, she made her South American Debut, and premiered Ayre in Buenos Aires at the Kirchner Cultural Centre. She has sung Ayre to critical acclaim in Banff and Edmonton Alberta, Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario, Victoria British Columbia, and opened the prestigious Rockport Music Festival in the USA, making this Song Cycle her signature piece. She also opened the 21c Music Festival at Koerner Hall with this very piece in 2020.
She has sung on numerous opera stages across North America and the U.K., including a stint at the renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera (GFO) in the United Kingdom. Notable roles include Mimì in La bohème (Canadian Opera Company, Minnesota Opera, Opera Hamilton, Calgary Opera, Edmonton Opera, and Against the Grain Theatre (AtG)); Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera Tampa and AtG/The Banff Centre/Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, National Arts Center Orchestra); Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande (AtG); the Governess in The Turn of the Screw (AtG); Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare (GFO); Almirena in Rinaldo (GFO); Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (Pacific Opera Victoria, Opera Lyra Ottawa, and AtG), Alcina (Fargo Moorhead Opera), Marzelline in Fidelio (Pacific Opera Victoria) and Mamah Cheney in Hagen’s Shining Brow (Urban Arias) among others.
Miriam made her much-anticipated major role debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Mimì in La bohème in 2019, a role she revisited with Edmonton Opera in 2022. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miriam pivoted masterfully to the digital stage and was involved in numerous innovative virtual projects.
With Pacific Opera Victoria, she participated in their ‘For All to Hear’ series, where she created, directed, produced and sang an online Arabic video recital, Songs My Parents Taught Me. She mentored their Apprentice Civic Engagement quartet (four young artists per year) to create, produce and direct their own virtual projects. She sang Elle in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine in a unique Poulenc/Cocteau digital project with VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert to critical acclaim and sang in recital with baritone Russel Braun and pianist Carolyn Maule, premiering a song cycle by Afarin Mansouri in the Mazzoleni Masters series at the Royal Conservatory, commissioned by Canadian Art Song Project. Miriam was also featured in Against the Grain Theatre’s digital production of Bound and picked up a directing credit on their film of Holst’s opera Sāvitri. Her recent seasons were also highlighted by Messiah/Complex, an internationally acclaimed, ATG/Toronto Symphony realization of Handel’s Messiah filmed against iconic Canadian landscapes sung in six languages by twelve soloists and 4 choirs. She was nominated for her second Juno with the recent release of the Messiah/Complex Album and won a Digital Excellence in Opera award with Opera America for ‘Best Noteworthy Project’. Miriam is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, the Steans Institute for Young Artists (Ravinia) and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme in England.
While in her last year of the COC Ensemble Studio, she advanced to the semi-finals of the Metropolitan Opera Council auditions and represented the Great Lakes Region on the Met stage, during which she was featured in the documentary film The Audition. She is a recipient of multiple awards and grants from the George London Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Scholarships.
She is a proud founding member of the Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning opera company Against the Grain Theatre (AtG). She also recently joined the Voice Faculty at the University of Alberta and is very excited to be working with the next generation of singing artists and creators.
August 2024
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““[Khalil] was vocally the most compelling of the cast. With a voice high and strong enough to bring full emotion to the big passages, Khalil also possesses a strong middle register and a memorable beauty of tone colour. This was a portrayal of Mimi that she can, so to speak, take to the bank: many companies will be happy to have Mimi as natural on stage as this, and who can bring a tear to the eye in moments of passion or pathos.” ”
![“Miriam Khalil wheedles, begs, suffers and rages as Elvira, the jilted lover, making her fine soprano express every emotion with exactness and feeling.” [ Uncle John , Against the Grain Theatre] Robert Harris, The Globe and Mail](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea12b219c03680a5cc556d0/1588749750101-0W12WW88CQ4FI8W00HAO/o7.jpg)
