Associate Professor of Music
In Europe, critics described Karen Leigh’s Carmen as "a very attractive heroine with a striking mezzo soprano" (Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Landeszeitung) and commended the "well-formed supple [vocal] lines of her Venus" (Tannhäuser, Neue Zeit) while the New York Times wrote, "Karen Leigh sang extremely well" in the world premiere of Animalen which opened the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Past seasons have also found Ms. Leigh’s versatile mezzo in Germany and New York singing Jenny in Die Dreigroschenoper with the infamous Gisela May, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and Anita in West Side Story. Additional credits include leading roles in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Madama Butterfly, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Traviata, L’Elisir d’Amore, The Mikado and Hänsel und Gretel.
Ms. Leigh further demonstrated her dramatic mastery when she transported audiences via the intimidating role of Maria Callas in Master Class. “Leigh is brilliant in her depth of character, her pacing, her facial expressions, her gestures." (Post Crescent).
In recital and concert, Ms. Leigh has been heard on several PBS broadcasts singing the works of Mozart with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Stephen Paulus on NPR, Schumann on “Live from the Landmark,” and Bernstein at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. In addition to regular appearances with the New York chamber ensemble Cassandra, Ms. Leigh has been heard in New York and across the United States singing Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor and Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, and Bach’s Weinachts Oratorium in numerous venues.
Her commitment to the promotion of American art music and its composers has reached as near as New York for the premiere of Alan Cohen’s chamber cycle, A Clover and One Bee and as far as Budapest and the Czech Republic with the songs of John Benson. Additional commissions include Jason Hoogerhyde’s color leaves, light stays (for voice, flute, viola, cello and piano), and the more than twenty new songs by as many composers (including Stephen Paulus, Libby Larsen, and Lori Laitman) which she collected in the ground-breaking anthology American Art Song for the Sacred Service (book and CD available through Classical Vocal Reprints).
Ms. Leigh-Post earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the tutelage of master teacher Shirlee Emmons at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. Other coaches and teachers include Warren Jones, Joan Dornemann, Judith Nicosia and Emma Small. She joined the faculty of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in 1996.
She is especially pleased to note that alumni from her studio of just over a decade receive scholarships to the finest graduate music programs in the country including the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Michigan and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (top Corbett Award); participate in prestigious apprenticeship programs (including Santa Fe Opera); and perform leading roles in New York City venues such as Town Hall with One World Symphony, Garden State Opera, and Bronx Opera to name but a few.
Contact by e-mail: karen.leigh-post@lawrence.edu
