Described by Opera News as "a revelation", Canadian mezzo-soprano Reilly Nelson brings her “distinctly warm and burnished” sound to stages across North America and Europe. In the fall and winter of 2021, she joined Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists Programme at the Luneberg Academy of Music Performance in Canada, made her Rochester Philharmonic debut as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, returned to the Luneberg Academy for a concert of Ana Sokolovic works, made her European debut as Caterina in Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz with the Tiroler Festspiele Erl and was featured in Erl’s New Years Eve concert. In 2022, she made her debut with The Phoenix Symphony as the alto soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, performed Mozart selections in a digital recording project with the Canadian International Organ Competition and curated a recital of Neapolitan songs with The Marconi Cultural Event Center in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. This past summer, she returned to the Glimmerglass Festival as a guest artist where she sang Gianna in the world premiere of Tenor Overboard and performed as Ursula and in the Trio of Herwegen while also stepping in for a performance as Elsa Schraeder in The Sound of Music. In the fall of 2022, she will perform in a Cabaret concert at Kingston Road United Church in Toronto.

In 2020-2021, Ms. Nelson sang Mezzo 2 in the Glimmerglass Festival workshop of The Knock and was set to debut as Mercédès in Cincinnati Opera’s production of Carmen (COVID19). That summer, Ms. Nelson was set to join the Glimmerglass Festival to sing Second Lady/Second Spirit in The Magic Flute, and to cover the title role while singing Mastrilla in Songbird, a new English adaptation of La Perichole COVID19). During the summer of 2020, Ms. Nelson participated as a young artist with Glimmerglass Opera in a virtual iteration of the distinguished program that featured working sessions with Isabel Leonard, Francesca Zambello, Eric Owens, and Renée Fleming.

In her 2019/20 season, Ms. Nelson sang Suzuki in Soo Opera Theater’s production of Madama Butterfly, Stephano in Cincinnati Opera’s Roméo et Juliette, and gave a workshop performance of William Menefield and Sheila Williams’ new opera, Fierce, with Cincinnati Opera’s Opera Fusion New Works.

Additional recent highlights include the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors and Leah in Enemies, A Love Story, both with Kentucky Opera, and Trouble in Tahiti with Lexington Philharmonic. Her continued relationship with Cincinnati Opera mirrors Ms. Reilly’s consistent balance of traditional and new operatic repertoire, including Flora in La traviata, Lupe Marin in Frida, a workshop performance of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Intimate Apparel, and the U.S. premiere of Julien Bilodeau’s Another Brick in the Wall: The Opera.

In addition to her theatrical work, Ms. Nelson is a seasoned concert artist. Recent credits include Mozart’s Requiem with the Reno Philharmonic, a staged performance of Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf with Cincinnati Chamber Opera and Cincinnati Song Initiative. With Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Ms. Nelson has performed Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and B minor Mass, Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, and cabaret songs of William Bolcom and Kurt Weill.

Ms. Nelson took second prize in the Kurt Weill Foundation’s prestigious Lotte Lenya Competition in 2018, after winning the Carolyn Weber Award in the same competition in 2016. She was the winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in the Middle/East Tennessee District.