Four-time winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition (San Francisco District), soprano Ellen Leslie maintains a vibrant international career as an opera performer, concert soloist, and recitalist.

In the 2024-25 season, Ms. Leslie toured Paris, Versailles, and Blois singing the soprano solos in the Requiems of Fauré and Saint-Saëns, including at the historic La Madeleine. She returned to Festival Napa Valley as the soloist for La Dolce Vita celebrating the music of Ennio Morricone, and as part of the Royal Opera of Versailles production of La fille du régiment. She recorded an album of works by Byron Adams for soprano and chamber orchestra, to be released Fall 2025. She also appeared in San Francisco as soloist in the Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Bruckner Requiem; appeared as a featured artist in the Kristin Pankonin American Art Song Award Showcase; and sang recitals of music by David Conte, Byron Adams, Eric Choate, and Ian Venables.

Ms. Leslie has appeared on stages across Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, France, England, Germany, and the United States. A versatile concert artist, Ms. Leslie has performed the soprano solos in the Requiems of Mozart, Fauré, Michael Haydn, Bruckner, Saint-Saëns, and Brahms; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Bach’s St. John Passion; Mozart’s Mass in C Minor; Haydn’s Paukenmesse; Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy; and Carmina Burana. She has made multiple solo appearances with the San Francisco Symphony and was nominated for a 2024 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance with an SFS chamber ensemble in a recording of Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna.

Bay Area opera highlights from recent seasons include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) with the Santa Rosa Symphony; creating the role of Jane Bennet in the world premiere of Kirke Mechem’s Pride & Prejudice; Adina (L’elisir d’amore) with Pocket Opera, Festival Napa Valley (cover), and the San Francisco Opera Guild; Valencienne (The Merry Widow) with Pocket Opera; and a solo concert of opera arias with the Merced Symphony. As Ida in Opera San Jose’s Die Fledermaus, she “made the most of her brief moments as she showed off her bright, pure soprano” (Opera Today). She was “sparkling, by turns lovelorn, impish, and imperious” (Mercury News) as Josephine (HMS Pinafore) with Lamplighters Music Theatre, with which she also sang the title role in Patience.

Internationally, Ms. Leslie made her German debut as Pamina in Schloss Merode, and that same year jumped in as a critically acclaimed Rosane in Vivaldi’s La verità in cimento in Leipzig, in which she “shone from beginning to end…coloraturas and ornamentations were delivered with admirable assurance, prepared with extreme precision.” (Neue Musikzeitung, tr.) She has appeared across the U.S. in leading roles in Hansel and Gretel, The Consul, the American premiere of Rocking Horse Winner, and the world premiere of Vinkensport, or the Finch Opera. She is featured in conductor Ming Luke’s TED-Ed video The Physics of Opera Singing.

A dedicated recitalist, Ms. Leslie is especially known for her interpretations of French, English, and German art song, and frequently collaborates on new works. In recent seasons, she premiered Stabat Mater by Byron Adams, written especially for her; gave a recital of English and American song in Malvern, England, with pianist Eric Choate; and premiered the high voice version of David Conte’s Ogden Nash songs. She is also an in-demand chamber musician, praised for her clarion tone and seamless straight-tone facility, and regularly performs with choral ensembles including Cappella SF and the San Francisco Symphony.

Raised aboard a 37-foot Irwin sailboat while circumnavigating the globe with her family, Ms. Leslie brings a spirit of exploration to her artistry. She holds dual undergraduate degrees from the University of Denver (BM in Voice Performance and BA in French, both summa cum laude), a Master’s from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and completed postgraduate studies on full scholarship at the Hochschule für Musik “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig. She has also studied in Strasbourg, France.

Ms. Leslie is based in San Francisco, where she lives with her husband, composer/conductor/organist Eric Choate, and studies with Sheri Greenawald.