Raised in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment, the French-American mezzo-soprano and librettist Sophia Stern finds her artistic home interpreting and performing words and music from the renaissance to the contemporary and exploring a mix of opera, Lied, folk, chanson, jazz and spoken word as both a singer and poet.
She received her classical training at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Universität der Künste in Berlin, working with Caitlin Hulcup, Carola Höhn and Kathleen Livingstone and holds a degree in comparative literature from Kings College London. As a classical singer, she has performed in numerous venues in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Israel and China. She was a member of the Opera Fuoco Young Artists Program for three years, during which she performed roles in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Bernstein‘s West Side Story, Rumschinsky‘s Yiddish operetta Die Goldene Kahle with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the world premiere of Cosi Fanciulli, prequel to Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte by Nicolas Bacri at the Theatre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. She has been re-invited to perform as a soloist with Opera Fuoco in their 2025-26 production of La Clemenza di Tito at the Opera houses of Massy and Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines.
Sophia developed her skills as a jazz singer during a summer at the Berkeley at Umbria Jazz Clinic and working with jazz vocalist Sara Lazarus. She has since performed several times at the renowned Bal Blomet jazz club in Paris, collaborating with percussionist Phelan Burgoyne and pianists Alain Jean-Marie and Chris Culpo. Fascinated not only by jazz and the art of improvisation, Sophia was drawn to the music of Luciano Berio during her undergraduate years and spent time in Italy studying the origins of his folk songs and meeting the mountain singers that inspired them. Deeply committed to the relevance of contemporary music and the collaboration between performers and creators, she will participate this coming summer in the Voix Nouvelles Academy as part of the Campus Royaumont, a new program for emerging singers and composers at the Royaumont Abbey outside of Paris to create new and collaborative works.
Sophia’s versatility has led her to explore different artistic practices. While pursuing her two main passions, music and literature, she discovered her penchant for the art of the libretto. She collaborated with German composer, Andreas Bäuml on multiple works for voice and ensemble including a one-woman opera Daphne’s Dream and INSOMNIA, a song-cycle for mezzo-soprano and 6 instruments, both performed in Salzburg with the Austrian Ensemble für Neue Musik and the ensemble NAMES, respectively. Other works include Turning Eurydice for 6 voices and string quartet, presented at ARCo Marseille with Les Métaboles and Tana Quartett, View of a glass on a chair for 6 voices, cello and percussion, and March: shades of a dream for voice and string orchestra, which won third prize at the at the Regensburg Composition Competition.
Together with the pianist Justine Eckhaut, Sophia is artistic director of the berlied festival for Art Song in Berlin, an innovative and interdisciplinary Lied festival. The all-female team’s mission is to revitalise the genre, make it more accessible to the greater public and to infuse it it with a creative and contemporary vision. The Festival will present its fourth season in October 2025.