2026 Classical Award Winner: Sarah Fleiss, Soprano

Described as “bright” and “stylish” by Opera News, American soprano Sarah Fleiss is currently a member of the 12th edition of Le Jardin des Voix singing La Poésie in Les arts florissants and Proserpine in La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers with Bill Christie, as well as opening the Festival de Printempts in a concert of sacred works by Alessandro Scarlatti with Paul Agnew. This summer, she debuts at the Monteverdi Festival in Cremona, Italy singing La Fortuna and Damigella in L’incoronazione di Poppea, sings motets of de Lalande at the Les Arts Florissants Festival Dans Les Jardins de William Christie and continues tour with Le Jardin des Voix across North America. This fall she portrays the title role in Handel’s Esther with Mountainside Baroque, sings the Beethoven Mass in C with the Binghamton Symphony and debuts with the Sarasota Orchestra singing Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate. Her notable operatic roles include Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, the Vixen in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Ginevra in Handel’s Ariodante. Concert highlights include the Fauré Requiem, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, the Dvořák Te Deum, and Poulenc’s Gloria. She has won awards from the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition, the Harvard Musical Association, and the Gerda Lissner, George London, Mascarade Opera, and Opera Awards Foundations, and trained at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Georg Solti Accademia, the Aspen Musical Festival and the Verbier Festival.