Mezzo-soprano Elisa Sutherland gives detailed, stylistic performances of early and new music with “soul-infused expressiveness and unselfconscious joie de vivre.” Highlights from this upcoming season include a performance of Jacquet de la Guerre’s Judith with TENET Vocal Artists, a European tour with Ekmeles, and three appearances with Alkemie medieval ensemble.
Ellie is a core member of Ekmeles, a sextet dedicated to exploring microtonal tuning and extended vocal techniques. She has appeared in art song recitals with the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) and Philadelphia’s Lyricfest. In the realm of vocal chamber music, Ellie frequently appears with the top ensembles in the country including The Crossing, Roomful of Teeth, Lorelei, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Variant 6, and Seraphic Fire.
Through her work as a soloist and choral musician, Ellie has workshopped and premiered new compositions by composers Ted Hearne, Julia Wolfe, Erin Gee, Michael Gordon, Christopher Trapani, David Lang, Zosha Di Castri, Shawn Jaeger, John Luther Adams, Hannah Kendall, Caroline Shaw, Yaz Lancaster, Michael Gilbertson, Gavin Bryars, Joanne Metcalf, Kile Smith, Pablo Chin, L J White, and many more. In the world of early music, Ellie has explored repertoire ranging from the medieval to the baroque periods with ensembles TENET Vocal Artists, Quicksilver Baroque, Filament, Elm City Consort, and Alkemie.
Ellie has been featured as a soloist with Apollo’s Fire, TENET, Contemporaneous, Arcana New Music Ensemble, American Bach Soloists, and Apollo Chorus of Chicago. She has sung for over 25 commercial recordings (including three GRAMMY-winning albums) and was a soloist on The Crossing’s GRAMMY-nominated album, “Boenhoffer.”
In addition to winning the Philadelphia District of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 2015, Ellie is the 2014 winner of the Lynne Harvey Cooper Award and was the first-place winner of the inaugural Handel Aria Competition at the Madison Early Music Festival in 2013. Recent opera roles include Conversation in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Les plaisirs de Versailles, Hera in Chris Cerrone’s All Wounds Bleed, Ensemble in Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta with the Prototype Festival, Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Meg in Little Women, Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea, and Nancy in Albert Herring. Ellie is also remembered for her Blazing Saddles/Madeline Kahn impression in a production of Die Fledermaus.
Outside of performing, Ellie is a freelance grant writer for early and contemporary music ensembles. She has produced two full-length albums with Tiny Panther Recording for Alkemie and Freelance Nun. Ellie graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, and a Master of Music in Vocal Performance. Born in Milwaukee, WI, she now lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Anton, and an unruly monstera deliciosa.
Ellie has performed in over 25 commercial recordings, including:
With The Crossing: Carols After a Plague (2022), GRAMMY-winning Born (2022), GRAMMY-nominated Sila, Breath of the World (2022), A Native Hill (2021), The Tower and the Garden (2021), Rising with The Crossing (2020), GRAMMY-nominated Carthage (2020), Anonymous Man (2020), GRAMMY-nominated Voyages (2019), GRAMMY-nominated The Arc in the Sky (2019), Fire in my mouth (2019), GRAMMY-winning Zealot Canticles (2018), If There Were Water (2018), Canticles of the Holy Wind (2017), Seven Responses (2017), Sound from the Bench (2017), GRAMMY-nominated Bonhoeffer; mezzo-soprano soloist (2016), GRAMMY-winning The Fifth Century (2016), Words Adorned (2015), Moonstrung Air (2015)
With Variant 6: New Suns (2022), Fall and Decline (2021)
With Ekmeles: A Howl, That Was Also A Prayer (2020)
With Clarion Choir: Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil ('Vespers'), op. 37 (2023)
With Alkemie: A Fine Companion (2023)