Described as an artist with "…powerfully impressive pipes…flashy flamboyance and beguiling tone indicating huge potential for the future," Canadian mezzo-soprano Mia Lennox-Williams is quickly becoming recognized for the beauty, colour and flexibility of her instrument and her innate dramatic sense.
Elegant and striking with a sizeable instrument, Ms Lennox-Williams' burgeoning operatic career includes a diverse range of roles. In 2012, Ms. Lennox-Williams will appear as alto soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Thunder Bay Symphony in March, as Lola in Cavelleria Rusticana with Opera Edmonton in October and will be a guest artist in recital with the Amanda Johnston Recital Series in Toronto in December. She will also appear as Orlovsky in l’Opéra de Montréal’s Le Chauve-Souris in September of 2013. She recently sang Baba the Turk with Pacific Opera Victoria in a new production directed by Glynis Leyshon. With the same company, Ms. Lennox-Williams sang Idamante in Idomeneo under the baton of Mario Bernardi. Of this performance, Opera Canada remarked "...Lennox-Williams' sonorous, agile mezzo negotiated Mozart's florid lines with apparent effortlessness." In the same season she created the role of Gwendolen in the world premiere of Davies and Benson's Earnest: The Importance of Being with the Toronto Operetta theatre.
On the concert stage, Ms. Lennox-Williams most recently appeared with the Toronto Philharmonia in de Falla’s Three Cornered Hat. She has also been a soloist with the Kingston Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, Peterborough Festival and Brott Festival as alto soloist in Handel's Messiah and as alto I soloist in Mahler's Symphony No. 8 (also known as the Symphony of a Thousand) with the Brott Summer Music Festival. Ms. Lennox-Williams was also as a featured guest artist with the Boris Brott Summer Music Festival Opera Gala.
In 2007, Ms. Lennox-Williams was awarded a prestigious Emerging Artists grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, which was used to fund a three-month role study project in London, England. Building on her natural facility for trouser roles, Ms. Lennox-Williams mentored the roles of Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) and der Komponist (Ariadne auf Naxos) with internationally renowned Australian mezzo-soprano Yvonne Minton, an authoritative interpreter of both characters. Further interpretative work on der Komponist ensued under the tutelage of British vocal coach and conductor, Martin Isepp.
2005/2006 marked a season of professional debuts beginning with Ms. Lennox-Williams’ appearance with Pacific Opera Victoria in British Columbia as Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia. Shortly thereafter, she began to create the role of Molly Brant in Tyendinaga, a new opera based on the life of Mohawk warrior Chief Joseph Brant, commissioned by Opera Ontario in Hamilton, Ontario. She was the alto soloist for Bach Cantata #70 (Wachet, betet, betet, wachet) under the baton of Helmut Rilling during the International Bach Festival in Toronto. She finished her season in Alberta with her Calgary Opera debut as Tisbe in La Cenerentola and with her debut with Orchestra London as alto soloist in the Bach Magnificat and as Mary in Resphighi’s Lauda per la nativita del signore in London, Ontario.
As a member of the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, she sang the role of Dryad and covered the role of der Komponist for l’Opéra de Montréal’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos. She toured the Maritime provinces and Quebec as die Hexe in Hänsel und Gretel for the Atelier Lyrique and also appeared as the Sorceress in the Montréal production of Dido and Aeneas. Ms. Lennox-Williams was a semi-finalist in the Concours Musical de Montréal and appeared in recital at La Chapelle Historique du Bon Pasteur as the winner of the Début Young Artist Competition. In Halifax she was Dame Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff under the baton of Raffi Armenian and appeared as a featured artist in Nova Scotia Opera’s Valentine Gala.
Ms. Lennox-Williams was a winner of the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques competition in Toronto and subsequently was chosen to participate in the Centre National d’Insertion Professionelle d’Artistes Lyriques (CNIPAL) in Marseilles, France. While in Europe, she sang the role of die Mutter in Hänsel und Gretel at the Bayreuth Staatsoper with the Deutsch-Franzosichen forum junger kunst. With l’Orchestre d’Aix en Provence, she appeared as alto soloist in Mozart’s Krönungsmesse. In the United States, she attended the Tanglewood Music Center as a Fellow and was the soprano II soloist in the Bach Magnificat under the baton of Seiji Ozawa.
Other engagements have included de Falla’s El Amor Brujo and Carmen excerpts with the Oakville Symphony and a world premiere of Toronto composer Alexander Rappoport’s Northscapes at the Glenn Gould Studio with the Talisker Players. She was also featured with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in a concert series designed for young audiences singing excerpts from Die Zauberflöte and Hänsel und Gretel.
Ms. Lennox-Williams holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance and a Diploma in Operatic Performance from the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada and lives in Hamilton with her husband and young son.