Jessica Renfro

An internationally performing opera and oratorio singer, critics have called mezzo-soprano Jessica Renfro “The Ferrari on stage” and “provocative…and vocally outstanding” with “seemingly irrepressible energy [that] made her stage presence captivating”.

In June 2015, Ms. Renfro made her Italian debut at the prestigious Opera di Firenze’s Maggio Musicale singing the role of Paquette in Bernstein’s Candide, for which she was praised as “fun” and “alluring”.       On the opera stage she has performed with Opera Tampa, Opera Delaware, Dicapo Opera, St. Petersburg Opera, and others in repertoire including the title role in La Cenerentola, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, and Romeo in I Capuleti ed i Montecchi.

Also an accomplished concert artist, she has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Bach in Baltimore Concert Series and the Bay-Atlantic Symphony in solo orchestral works including Handel’s Messiah, the Mozart Requiem, and the Bach B Minor Mass.

In the 2017-2018 season, Ms. Renfro brought Lost in the Woods, a medley of art song, jazz, and dance, to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. In October, she was an Artist-in-Residence at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and in December she returned to the Richmond Symphony and the Bach in Baltimore Concert Series as the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah. In 2018-2019 she will debut with the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and is the featured performer in the Mid Atlantic Symphony’s New Year’s Eve concert. In 2019 she will also premiere Sea Change, a multimedia program of new works by composers from around the globe focusing on the issue of global climate change.

Originally from Coventry, Connecticut, she began her career in music as a singer/songwriter, performing in venues throughout New England with her guitar.  After discovering a love of classical music in college, she earned a B.M. from the University of Connecticut and a M.M. and G.P.D. from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD.

Artist biography from 2018