“always a piquant presence”

Christopher Corwin

Parterre Box

“Especially fine”

James R. Oestreich

The New York Times

“baroque style and expressive panache”

David Shengold

Opera News

“silvery-toned”

Charles T. Downey

Washington Classical Review

Noelle McMurtry, soprano, has established herself as a versatile and expressive vocal performer, researcher, concert curator, and musicologist, who employs her interdisciplinary background in service of inclusive storytelling. She engages with genre-bending music-theater projects that explore diverse and underrepresented feminist perspectives to question and re-contextualize the canon.

Calendar

Snapshots

by | Aug 11, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

July weekend in NYC☀️

by | Aug 1, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

AMOR statue by Robert Indiana at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden

by | Jun 12, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

We made it to Machu Picchu! 🦙

by | May 25, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

Peabody DMA Graduation 🎉

by | May 16, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

Gorgeous portrait of composer Luise Adolpha Le Beau by Kira of Coloraturastrations

by | Apr 30, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

DMA Lecture Recital prep with Hui-Chuan Chen (piano)

by | Apr 22, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

Cashew considering baby geese on the Tidal Basin

by | Mar 26, 2023 | Social Media | 0 Comments

Cherry blossom season in Washington DC! 🌸🌸

News

Association Mel Bonis Feature

I’m excited to announce that my latest blog post, “A place of rest where we will not enter: Trois Mélodies, op. 91 by Mel Bonis” has been featured by Christine Géliot, Director and Founder of the Association Mel Bonis, on their website. Check out the feature here!

Research Internship with the Boulanger Initiative

This summer and fall 2023, I look forward to working as a Research Intern with the Boulanger Initiative (BI), a Washington DC-based organization that advocates for the music of women and gender-marginalized composers. My work will focus on updating the Boulanger Initiative Database, which contains 8,000 works by over 1,200 composers, as well as writing posts for BI’s blog.

Image: Illustration of composers Nadi and Lilli Boulanger | Boulanger Initiative

Trailer for A Women’s Suffrage Splendiferous Extravaganza!

Watch here for a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of A Women’s Suffrage Splendiferous Extravaganza! (AWSSE!) With a generous grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, co-creators November Christine, Caroline Miller, and I discuss preparations for our upcoming staged readings of AWSSE! on November 5th and 6th, 2021 at Alchemical Studios in New York City.

For more information and updates on AWSSE!, check out my projects.

“A place of rest where we know we will not enter”: Trois Mélodies, op. 91 of Mel Bonis

by | Oct 1, 2023 | Composer | 0 Comments

In "Trois Mélodies, op. 91," I wondered how composer Mel Bonis truly felt as she set Maurice Bouchor's poetry, texts which outline the poet's desire for an unattainable beloved.

To Be Loved Less Than a Flower: “Hyacinth” by Margaret Bonds & Edna St. Vincent Millay

by | Aug 11, 2023 | Composer | 0 Comments

In composer Margaret Bonds’ setting of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Hyacinth,” we encounter an unflinching intersectional feminist portrait of the ever-shifting dynamics between gender, power, and love.

Singing with Myself: Pandemic Virtual Performance & Melissa Dunphy’s June

by | Dec 1, 2022 | Composer | 0 Comments

Through virtually recording Melissa Dunphy's "June" in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I confronted long-held insecurities around technology by learning how to sing with myself.

The Woman Within the Portrait: Ria & Mizzi

by | Mar 1, 2022 | Composer | 0 Comments

In Lacy Rose's cycles "Ria" and "Hope I," the composer humanizes through song the models of painter Gustav Klimt: the women within the portraits.

Suffragist Series: Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954)

by | Mar 1, 2022 | Research,Season Highlights | 0 Comments

Suffragist Series highlights the fascinating suffrage activists that I researched as dramaturg for A Women's Suffrage Splendiferous Extravaganza! (AWSSE!), including writer, educator, and civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954).

“one heart and one soul”: The Songs of Clara and Robert Schumann

by | Feb 25, 2022 | Composer | 0 Comments

In the Pleiades Project film "German Romantics: Clara," we explore the musical and romantic partnership between composers Clara and Robert Schumann that produced Clara's Lieder Op. 12.

«… und, wo ist Fanny?»

by | Feb 18, 2022 | Composer | 0 Comments

Despite intense self-doubt and familial pressure to forego publication, the 1846 publication of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's "Sechs Lieder, op. 1" represents the composer's assertion of a public and professional identity.

The Myth of Semele: A Woman on Fire

by | Feb 18, 2022 | Composer,Research | 0 Comments

I explore the myth of Semele, a woman on fire, in its many visual and musical permutations, including historical portraits and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre's 1715 biblical cantata "Semelé."

An Ancient Poet Speaks: Finding the Voice of Sulpicia

by | Feb 18, 2022 | Poet,Research | 0 Comments

Jessica Krash's "Sulpicia Songs" (2015) for voice and piano counters the sexist narrative that Sulpicia, an ancient Roman noblewoman, did not write six love elegies in the "Corpus Tibullianum."

Self-Portraits of Desire: Louise de Vilmorin & Gwen John

by | Feb 7, 2022 | Poet,Research | 0 Comments

Through Francis Poulenc's 1937 song set "Trois Poèmes de Louise de Vilmorin," I intertwine the artistic visions of painter Gwen John (1876-1936) and poet Louise de Vilmorin (1902-1969), whose historical narratives have focused more on their romantic affairs than their artistic expression.

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