MAEVE PALMER

BIOGRAPHY

Maeve Palmer is a Dora Award-winning soprano known for her versatility and dynamic range, described by Opera Canada as a “triple-threat … coloratura.” She has performed with distinguished organizations such as Tapestry Opera, New Music Concerts, Continuum Contemporary Music, Opera Atelier, Off-Centre Music, Chorus Niagara, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Orpheus Choir of Toronto, and on tour with the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition.

 

Her recent performances include Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Adina in Donizetti’s Elixir of Love with Highlands Opera, Jean MacDonald and Daisy Fairchild in The Bells of Baddeck (Burry/MacDonald), as well as Genio in the North American premiere of Haydn’s L’Anima del Filosofo. Upcoming performances include Adele in a concert production of Die Fledermaus with the Stratford Symphony Orchestra on New Year's Day, soprano soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor with Chorus Niagara, and Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale (Ruders/arr. Schlossberg) at the Banff Centre in summer 2025.

 

Maeve has been at the forefront of contemporary music, presenting the Canadian premiere of Samuel Andreyev’s cantata Iridescent Notation with New Music Concerts, and Luigi Nono’s La Fabbrica Illuminata at Koerner Hall (Toronto). Other notable contemporary performances include Mysteries of the Macabre (Ligeti) and the Canadian premiere of Dove’s Mansfield Park as Mary Crawford; both at the University of Toronto. She has been involved in numerous world premieres, including Nicole Lizée’s opera R.U.R. A Torrent of Light and Malfunctionlieder for soprano, piano, and degraded video, Alice Ping Yee Ho’s Four Seasons Ballad and Three Songs of the Tang Dynasty, Robert Taylor’s Opticks, and Tyler Versluis’s Five Poems, for soprano, cello, and harp.

 

In addition to her contemporary and early music work, Maeve has excelled in classic roles, including Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (UofT Opera), Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos (Highlands Opera Studio), Sandrina and Serpetta in La Finta Giardiniera, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, and Greta Fiorentino in Street Scene. Her oratorio performances include soprano solos in Bach’s Matthäus Passion, Honegger’s King David, and Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia.

 

Maeve's voice is featured in the Hollywood film The Space Between Us (2017), starring Asa Butterfield, Gary Oldman, and Britt Robertson, and in the TV series Aftermath (2016).

 

Maeve won the 2021 Jim and Charlotte Norcop Prize in Song from the University of Toronto and was the second prize winner of the 2017 Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition. She was also a finalist in the 2020 Vancouver Opera Competition.

 

Maeve holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice Pedagogy and Performance from the University of Toronto, where she was a Junior Fellow at Massey College. She is also an alumna of the Rebanks Family Fellowship and International Performance Residency Program at the Glenn Gould School, and the Sidgwick Scholar Program with the Orpheus Choir of Toronto (2015–18). She studied with Jill Kelman, Mary Morrison, O.C., and Professor Lorna MacDonald, the Lois Marshall Chair in Voice at the University of Toronto.