Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano is recognized for her naturally lustrous sound as well as a fresh and appealing presence on symphonic, operatic and recital stages. A 2012 Richard Tucker Career Grant and Opera Index Winner and a 2011 Sara Tucker Study Grant Recipient, Ms. Cano joined The Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera in 2008 and made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2009-2010 singing a Bridesmaid in Le nozze di Figaro and Sandman in Hansel and Gretel. That same season she bowed as Wellgunde in the Met's new production of Das Rheingold and performed Ludmilla in The Metropolitan Opera and The Juilliard School's joint production of The Bartered Bride conducted by James Levine. As First Prize winner of the 2009 Young Concert Artist International Auditions, she has already given stunning recital debuts at Merkin Hall and the Kennedy Center, and in Boston, Philadelphia, Houston and Chicago. "Ms. Johnson Cano is effortlessly likable, but in both her voice and her manner there is also a hint of something steely, even intimidating. Character - individuality, a taste for risk - is the attribute some find lacking in young American singers, but Ms. Johnson Cano has it: an honesty and assurance so impressive that you want to call it bravery." - The New York Times
Ms. Cano began the 2012-2013 season with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Choral Fantasy with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas and performed Mozart’s Mass in C minor with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic in New York City’s Avery Fisher Hall and at the Vail Valley Music Festival. She returns to the Met as Wellgunde in Das Rheingold and Götterdammerung, Mercédès in Carmen and Emilia in Otello. After making her Carnegie Hall debut in May 2012 with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra in a concert performance of Strauss's Salome, Jennifer Johnson Cano returns to Zankel Hall for Carnegie Hall's Marilyn Horne Song Celebration. She sings Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy at Alice Tully Hall with Musica Sacra and conductor Kent Tritle, Messiah with both the Ann Arbor and San Francisco Symphonies, and Salieri’s Funeral Music and Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the New York Virtuoso Singers/Canticum Novum at the Church of St. Jean Baptiste. She performs solo recitals at the Cosmos Club in Washington DC and the Gardner Museum in Boston.
Ms. Cano made her debut with the Chicago Opera Theater as Kate Julian in Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave in 2009. In 2011, she returned to Chicago to perform Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben as part of the company's new production He/She. "Jennifer Johnson Cano brought a sincerity and emotional depth to these beautiful songs that made the texts' occasional excesses seem completely irrelevant. With a rich voice, ease of technique and expressive delicacy, Cano conveyed the varied elements of Schumann's cycle from the rapt wonder of Du Ring an meinem Finger to the excited joy of her impending marriage (Helft mir, Ihr Schwestern) and the rush of maternal joy in An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust." - Chicago Classical Review. After two seasons as a Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Ms. Cano debuted as a principal artist in 2008 as The Muse/Nicklausse in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman. During the 2011-2012 season, she performed solo recital dates with pianist Christopher Cano at the University of California at Davis, Union College, Webster University, the Paramount Theatre in Rutland, VT, and was presented by the Buffalo Chamber Music Society at Kleinhans Music Hall. Additionally, she appeared at the 2012 Festival of the Arts BOCA in “Opera Goes to the Movies” with James Valenti and Angela Meade and at the Music Center at Strathmore with the World Doctors Orchestra and the National Philharmonic Chorale in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. With the Metropolitan Opera, she performed as Kate Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Sandman in Hansel and Gretel, and Wellgunde in Das Rheingold.
As a Young Concert Artist winner, she was awarded the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and Princeton University Prizes and gave recitals throughout the United States, including Boston, Philadelphia, Houston and Chicago. She toured with Musicians from Marlboro singing Respighi's Il Tramonto and Cuckson's Der gayst funem shture, recorded live and released by the Marlboro Recording Society. A live recording of Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde” with tenor Paul Groves was released by The Orchestra of St. Luke’s in September 2012 as well as a series of dvd’s devoted to Robert LePage’s Ring cycle for The Metropolitan Opera in which Ms. Cano portrays a Rhinemaiden. She has participated in the Ravinia Festival's Steans Institute and received a 2009 Sullivan Foundation Award. At the request of Mrs. Carol Armstrong, Jennifer Johnson Cano is particularly honored to have been invited to sing the Anderson/Weill September Song at the private funeral for American icon and astronaut Neil Armstrong.
Jennifer Johnson Cano is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, and obtained her bachelor's degree in Music from Webster University in St. Louis and her master's degree from Rice University in Houston, Texas. She currently resides in New York City.
AT THE REQUEST OF THE ARTIST, PLEASE DO NOT ALTER THIS BIOGRAPHY WITHOUT PRIOR APPROVAL
October 2012 - PLEASE DESTROY PREVIOUSLY DATED MATERIALS