Karen Slack

Praised as "one of opera’s strongest voices at present – both as a singer and a shaper of its culture” (The Washington Post), soprano Karen Slack is a recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and a 2025 MPower Artist Grant. She is a sought-after curator and artistic advisor known for her fiery charisma and groundbreaking approach to engagement. Her debut album, Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price on Azica Records, won the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.

Slack’s 2025-26 season sees the continuation of nationwide touring for her critically-acclaimed African Queens, including Portland Opera’s season-opening performance. Slack will perform world premieres of Tamar-kali’s new work with the Miró Quartet for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; Kathryn Bostic’s Drag, which celebrates the life of Gladys Bentley at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; and Brittany J. Green’s Letters to America for Soprano and Orchestra, part of the American Composers Orchestra’s program Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us at Carnegie Hall. She also appears with the Orlando Philharmonic, Chamber Music Cincinnati, and Spivey Hall, and in works from her GRAMMY®-winning album Beyond the Years at Yale School of Music’s Oneppo Chamber Music Series and Amherst College.

In July 2024, Slack released an ambitious new recording project, Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price, with pianist Michelle Cann in collaboration with ONEcomposer. The album comprises the unpublished songs of Florence Price, and won the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, which was the first time an album of the work of a Black composer received the award. In 2025, Slack was featured on Shawn Okpebholo’s album Songs in Flight, released with Cedille Records.

When the pandemic limited live performances during the 2020-2021 season, Slack made premiere digital performances with Houston Grand Opera, Madison Opera, and Minnesota Opera. She starred in a new production of the opera Driving While Black, presented by UrbanArias, and launched a digital talk show, #kikikonversations, drawing acclaim from Opera News and The New York Times.

Karen Slack has performed on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Scottish Opera, San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Austin Opera, New Orleans Opera, Minnesota Opera, Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera, Sacramento Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Madison Opera and Arizona Opera, among others. Abroad, she has appeared with the Melbourne Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Slack made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe’s Healing Tones with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in May 2024.

A recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and 2025 MPower Artist Grant, Slack is an Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera, serves on the board of the American Composers Orchestra, and holds a faculty position at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada. She has been named Lyric Unlimited Artist-in-Residence at Lyric Opera of Chicago for the 2024-2025 season as well as Artist-in-Residence at leading entrepreneurial institution Babson College.

A native Philadelphian, Slack is a graduate of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, as well as the Adler Fellowship and the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera.

For more information, please visit www.sopranokarenslack.com.