Egyptian American mezzo-soprano Sahar Hassan is “… rich toned and authoritative.” ~ Starr Tribune. She is as an opera singer, chamber musician, oratorio soloist and the artistic director of the Twin Cities based Ladyslipper Ensemble ladyslipperensemble.org

The 2023/24 season brings several concerts with Ladyslipper Ensemble and a self-produced, grant funded concert. All to include Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, Korngold’s Abschiedslieder, Bridge’s Three songs for mezzo-soprano, viola and piano, Rachmaninoff Romances and selections from Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder.

In 2022/23, Ms. Hassan sang the role of Bianca in An Opera Theatre’s production of The Rape of Lucretia, Countess Craven in Jake Runestad’s Daughters of the Bloody Duke with Journey North Opera Company and covered the part of Second Lady with Opera Reading Project’s The Magic Flute. Additionally, she was a soloist with Ladyslipper Ensemble and Twin Cities Catholic Chorale. Recent roles included the Witch in Imaginality Opera’s educational project of Hansel and Gretel and Venus in La Dafne with Bold North Baroque Opera. Additionally, she has performed with Mill City Summer Opera and Out of the Box Opera. 

As an oratorio singer, Ms. Hassan performed with Twin Cities Catholic Chorale in 2023. She was the alto soloist in Franz Schubert’s Mass in C major, Haydn’s Gross Orgelsolo Mass, as well as Missa Brevis in D, Credo Mass and Missa Longa by W. A. Mozart. Additionally, she has been a soloist with St. Catherine Choral Society, where she performed Haydn’s Harmonie Messe and Vivaldi’s Gloria.

A recipient of several grants, Ms. Hassan was awarded a 2017 Artist Initiative grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to produce a commercial CD of vocal chamber music. Her CD The World’s Highway was released in 2019 on the Centaur label, reviewed by Fanfare Magazine “… we hear the excellence of Hassan’s vocal technique in her evenness of legato and her control when flying high and loud.” It was featured on MNspin’s list. She was also a grantee of a 2020 and 2022 Next Step Fund from MRAC and the McKnight Foundation, a Creative Support for Individuals grant from Minnesota State Arts Board in 2021 and 2022, to create virtual concerts during the pandemic and most recently in 2023 to produce a live recital, as well as a 2022 Music in Action grant from the Richard Wagner Society of the Upper Midwest to present a program of German lieder. She was a finalist for the 2022/23 McKnight Fellowship for Musicians.

As a recitalist, she created several programs through grant funding that reflected on the pandemic. In 2021: Home, Hope & Humanity with music by Amy Beach, Margaret Bonds, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Ricky Ian Gordon and Bernard Herrmann. In 2022: Love, Loss & Light with an evening of late romantic German Lieder.

As and educator, Ms. Hassan She has served on the faculties of Wellesley College, Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, New England Conservatory’s Division of Preparatory and Continuing Education, Salve Regina University, in Newport, Rhodes Island, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, in Collegeville, Minnesota, McNally Smith College of Music, as well as the Wellesley Composers’ Conference, where she was a chamber music coach.  Her students have been accepted into the undergraduate and graduate programs at New England Conservatory, Boston University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, New York University Tish School of the Arts, Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon University, Ithaca College and Smith College. In addition, several of them have spent summers with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and have appeared on National Public Radio’s “From the Top”. Others have participated in the summer apprentice opera programs in Santa Fe, Portland and Salzburg and have performed in master classes with Jose van Dam, Elly Ameling, Warren Jones and Mary Dibbern. Ms. Hassan was a resident artist with Ladyslipper Ensemble at Minnesota Public Radio’s Class Notes Artists, as well as a teaching artist with An Opera Theatre.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in French from California State University, Fresno and a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from New England Conservatory of Music, with additional studies at the Versailles Conservatory in France and the College of Music in Munich, Germany. As a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, Ms. Hassan has presented AT workshops at University of Minnesota, Northwestern and Concordia Universities, University of Wisconsin at River Falls and Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. She is assistant faculty at the Minnesota Center for the Alexander Technique.