Sara Couden

Contralto Sara Couden has a large repertory ranging from Handel, whose operas she has sung on many occasions, to contemporary music. Couden released her debut album, featuring vocal music by Artur Schnabel, in 2022. Couden was born on December 23, 1982, in Walnut Creek, California. She attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, earning a B.A. in literature in 2006. Couden continued with her studies of literature, earning an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University in 2009, but she then switched to music and earned a master of music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, specializing in opera, in 2014. Couden also holds an Artist Diploma from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (2014), with concentrations in early music, chamber music, and oratorio. Couden then entered the Lindemann Young Artist Program at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, completing that program in 2017. She has held fellowships at several festivals and academies, including Vermont's Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo in California, and the Music Academy of the West. Couden began to appear with major opera companies in the late 2010s. Her debut at the Metropolitan Opera came as Albine in Massenet's Thaïs, and she has made several return appearances there, including one in Britten's Peter Grimes. She was slated to make her debut at the San Francisco Opera in Poul Ruders' operatic adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale, but that production was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She has sung many Handel contralto roles. Couden has been in demand as a singer in concert music, performing Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ("Choral"), with the Charleston Symphony in South Carolina, and Handel's Messiah, HWV 56, with the Seattle Symphony. Couden's 2022 recording debut, Artur Schnabel: Complete Vocal Works, appeared on the Steinway & Sons label and featured pianist Jenny Lin.
© James Manheim /TiVo