Delaware native Julia Swan Laird, known for her "finely placed, lyrical and purely produced soprano voice," looks forward to an exciting 2023-2024 season as a second year Resident Artist at Pittsburgh Opera. There, she will perform "Diana/Greek Woman" in Iphigénie en Tauride, "Taller Daughter" in Proving Up, and "Annina" in La Traviata. In Pittsburgh Opera's 2022-2023 season, she performed "First Wood Sprite" in Rusalka, "Barbarina" and a student matinee performance of "Susanna" in Le Nozze di Figaro, and "Dalinda" in Ariodante. Other appearances include “Lucy,” in The Telephone with Pittsburgh Festival Opera, "Berta" in a joint production of Il barbiere di Siviglia with OperaDelaware and Baltimore Concert Opera (now Opera Baltimore), “Fairy Godmother” in Pauline Viardot’s Cinderella with Piedmont Opera, and "Suor Genovieffa" in Suor Angelica with OperaWest!. Julia was a Filstrup Resident Artist with Tulsa Opera in the fall of 2020, where she covered "Gilda" and sang "Giovanna" and "Page" in an exciting and innovative new production of Rigoletto, the first live opera in the US since March 2020. She is an alumna of the Accademia della Lirica Italiana in Bari, Italy, and the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Opera Studio where she performed scenes from Don Giovanni, The Ghosts of Versailles, and Carmen. While at Arizona State University’s Music Theatre and Opera program, Julia performed as "Romilda" in Serse, "Esmeralda" in The Bartered Bride, "First Spirit" in Die Zauberflöte, and the title roles in Les Mamelles de Tirésias and The Fairy Queen. 

 

Equally at home in the concert hall, Julia will perform as the soprano soloist in "Beethoven's Mass in C" with the Westmoreland Symphony in April 2023. She was a featured soloist for the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria and performed excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier and Rigoletto with the AIMS Festival Orchestra. She made her OperaDelaware debut as a young artist, performing in "Drive Thru Arias" concerts as a way to connect to the community during socially-distant times.She was awarded the 2018 Warren Hoffer Art Song Scholarship at Arizona State University, for which she performed a recital comprised of Libby Larsen compositions on the theme of the female perspective. Winterthur Museum featured Julia’s recital as the opening event for its 2020 Women’s Suffrage Centennial Celebration. Julia was a Resident Artist with the Mount Desert Summer Chorale in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she performed at their 50th Anniversary Gala and was a soloist for Mendelssohn's Elijah. Julia has been a soprano soloist with the St. Joseph on the Brandywine Choir and Chamber Ensemble in Delaware and the Choral Society of Durham and Pro Cantores Orchestra in North Carolina.

​

Recently, Julia placed third in the Opera Ithaca Edward M. Murray International Voice Competition and has been a finalist for the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition, Pittsburgh Festival Opera Mildred Miller Competition, MIOpera Competition, and the Saltworks Opera Competition. Julia placed fourth in the 2019 AIMS Meistersinger Competition and placed third in the 2019 American International Czech and Slovak Competition in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and has been the first place winner at Arizona NATS, Cal-Western Regional NATS, and North Carolina NATS.

 

Julia graduated from Arizona State University with a Master of Music in Opera Performance and a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance.