High lyric soprano Heather Phillips, whose performances have been described by Opera News as “beautiful” and “shimmering”, is continuing to garner critical acclaim with reputable performances on the opera and concert stage. This season, Ms. Phillips returns to the opera stage after the pandemic shutdown to make her European debut at Oper Frankfurt in the title role of Rossini's Bianca e Falliero in a new production by director Tilmann Köhler. Ms. Phillips will also make her Austrian debut at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in the Summer of 2022 in the same production of Bianca e Falliero as well as for a gala concert featuring the music of the Bel Canto repertoire of Bellini, Rossini & Donizetti. Ms. Phillips has worked & performed across the United States as an operatic & concert soloist in the high lyric soprano repertoire with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, Santa Fe Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Ravinia Festival, Arizona Opera, Tucson Desert Song Festival, Austin Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Cincinnati Opera, New Orleans Opera Association, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Boise Philharmonic, Oregon Music Festival, Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra, True Concord Festival Orchestra, Canton Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Opera Theatre, Kentucky Opera, Opera Southwest, Brevard Music Center and the Bayview Music Festival. Ms. Phillips can also be heard on the Grammy nominated original cast recording in the role of Katie in Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain, a role she created at the Santa Fe Opera that was recorded with the Pentatone Recording Label. An alumna of the Santa Fe Opera apprentice program, she joined the company for their 2014 and 2015 seasons, covering Micaela in Carmen and then Gilda in Rigoletto. She also performed as a soloist in a lieder recital with Harry Bickett at the piano for the chamber music series, Performance Santa Fe. The Santa Fe Opera apprentice scenes showcase saw her as Luisa (Verdi’s Luisa Miller) and as La Contessa (Rossini’s Il Viaggio A Reims). While as a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, she sang the role of Helena in Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream under the baton of Jane Glover. Ms. Phillips has received many awards including top honors in the 2015 Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation and the Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition. She is also the recipient of one of the Santa Fe Opera's outstanding apprentice singer awards. Also in 2014 Ms. Phillips advanced in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, winning the Connecticut district and advancing to the New England Regional Finals where she was awarded the 3rd place prize. In previous years, she has also received recognition and awards from the George London Foundation, Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition, Marcello Giordani Foundation, Irma M. Cooper Vocal Competition, Schuyler Foundation Competition for Career Bridges, National Opera Association Vocal Competition, Orpheus Vocal Competition, Violetta Dupont Vocal Competition, and the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust. In 2013 she made her Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall debut as a finalist in the Nico Castel Master Singer Competition and in the same year was selected to represent the United States as a finalist in the Queen Sonja International Vocal Competition in Oslo, Norway. Ms. Phillips received both her Master's and Bachelor's degrees from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. Before her collegiate operatic studies began, Ms. Phillips trained and performed as a pianist and flautist for 10 years, performing as an adolescent with the Canton Youth Symphony Orchestra as a flautist and throughout the community as a volunteer outreach performer on piano, flute and voice with the McDowell Music Club of her hometown of Canton, Ohio. Alongside her performance career, Ms. Phillips has worked as an arts educator and a digital media freelancer as a photographer, videographer & audio engineer. Her private teaching career spans over 10 years, with her most recent teaching being with the ArtSmart program, a national non-profit organization in the USA that provides one-on-one mentorship and music lessons to underprivileged teens. Other teaching engagements have included teaching residencies and masterclasses at the Aspen Music Festival (high school division) and at Texas State University.