Soprano Laquita Mitchell consistently earns acclaim in eminent opera companies throughout North America and Europe. Already in her young career, she has led performances with the Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, Opéra Comique in Paris, among many others.
Soprano Laquita Mitchell begins the 2023-24 season at the New Orleans Opera, where she will sing the role of the Countess in Mozart’s masterpiece Le Nozze Di Figaro, in a new production by Chas Rader- Shieber. Ms. Mitchell is pleased to be apart of the 150th season anniversary opening night of the Oratoria Society of New York at Carnegie Hall, where she will be the soprano soloist for Bach: Magnificat and Mozart Requiem.
A humanitarian at heart, Ms. Mitchell will take part in concerts and master classes in the island of Jamaica, bringing classical music to the University of the West Indies. Ms. Mitchell will begin the new year starring in a newly staged production of Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s Sanctuary Road for the Virginia Opera. She will reprise the soprano role in Sanctuary Road with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park and Princeton Pro Musica. Ms. Mitchell will debut in the Concert Series at St. Thomas Church in New York City performing the rarely heard Poulenc: Stabat Mater. She will be the soprano soloist for Beethoven: Symphony No.9 with the Chattanooga Symphony and will finish her season singing the beautiful soprano solo in Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Waterbury Symphony.
Ms. Mitchell began her 2022-2023 season performing the soprano solos in Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Madison Symphony Orchestra under the baton of John Demain. She then reprised the role of Josephine Baker in Tom Cipullo’s Josephine for Music of Remembrance in Seattle, Washington. Ms. Mitchell was the soprano soloist for Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. She sang a Christmas Concert for WQXR at the Greene Space and then made her debut with the Sarasota Symphony Orchestra singing the soprano solo in Mahler Symphony No. 4. Mitchell made her return to the role that she created Julie in the Pulitzer Prize winning opera Omar written by Rhiannon Giddens and Micheal Abels at the Carolina Performing Arts Center. Ms. Mitchell sang the soprano solo in Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road with the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati. The late conductor Bramwell Tovey programmed the Verdi Requiem with the Rhode Island Philharmonic before his death in the 2022-2023 season, Ms. Mitchell was humbled to sing the soprano solo in requiem as the piece was dedicated in the memory of Bramwell Tovey. Mitchell returned to Cincinnati to make her debut with the Cincinnati May Festival, singing Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses under the baton of Marin Alsop. Mitchell jumped in for an indisposed colleague, singing the soprano solo in Verdi Requiem making her debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic under the baton of JoAnn Falletta. Ms. Mitchell finished her season singing Samuel Barber’s American classic Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
In the Fall of 2020, through the pandemic, Ms. Mitchell was able to perform Mahler's Symphony No. 4 and Knoxville: Summer 1915 with Augusta Symphony, and was asked to curate two programs for Opera Colorado Amplified Series -with Rocky Mountain Media PBS. Ms. Mitchell’s 2019-2020 season included the title role in Tom Cipullo’s Josephine with Opera Colorado, Bess in Porgy and Bess with Grange Park Opera in the UK, Lithuanian State Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony, and the soprano soloist in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road with the Columbus Symphony. Right before the Covid-19 Pandemic, Ms. Mitchell made her debut with the Colorado Symphony in a program of romantic arias for Valentine’s Day. During the pandemic, Ms. Mitchell hosted a weekly program focusing on arts in education and activism within the arts. Ms. Mitchell was asked by the Grameen Creative Lab and Yunus Centre to lead a panel discussion in the "2020 Summer of Purpose” in München, Germany focusing on Race in Opera from the male perspective.
Also active as a concert artist, Ms. Mitchell recently performed Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Louisville Orchestra, the world premiere of Steven Stucky’s August 4, 1964 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Jaap Van Zweden, her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut as the soprano soloist in Wynton Marsalis’ All Rise under Kurt Masur, and the soprano solo in Tippett’s A Child of our Time with the Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center. She has also performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, the New York Symphonic Ensemble at Alice Tully Hall, with Branford Marsalis and the Garden State Philharmonic, and with the New York Festival of Song “Salute to Arlen” concert at Carnegie Hall.
In her compelling debut as Bess in Porgy and Bess with the San Francisco Opera, Opera News said “Soprano Laquita Mitchell, in her first outing as Bess, dazzled the SFO [San Francisco Opera] audience with her purity of tone and vivid theatrical presence.” She has since reprised the role with New Jersey State Opera, the Atlanta Opera; Madison Symphony, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (at both Tanglewood and Symphony Hall), among others.
Laquita Mitchell is a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Prize Winner, and was awarded a 2004 Sara Tucker Award. She was also the First Prize Winner of the Wiener Kammer Oper’s 2003 Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition, and the First Prize Winner of the Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers, as well as the winner of the Audience Choice award. Ms. Mitchell is an alumna of the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program and the Houston Grand Opera Studio. She completed her Master’s and the Professional Studies Certificate at the Manhattan School of Music, and completed her Bachelor’s in Music Education at Westminster Choir College.