• Artist/Teacher in Voice
• Email: carolineo@uri.edu
• Website

Biography

Caroline O’Dwyer is a mezzo-soprano from Connecticut with a passion for the operatic, concert, and recital stages, and has won several awards for her sensitive interpretation of art song. In January of 2018, she competed as a national semi-finalist for the prestigious NATS Artist Award, after winning the New England Regional Division of the competition in October of 2017.

Equally active on the concert stages of Connecticut, Caroline performed as the alto soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Waterbury Chorale and Festival Orchestra in April 2018.  Last summer, she performed in the Operapalooza Festival on the New Haven Green, directed by Simon Holt (Salt Marsh Opera) and hosted by David Pittsinger. She has also appeared as a soloist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and Greater Middletown Chorale, the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Nutmeg Symphony Orchestra, and the Skidmore Orchestra and Chorus.

Caroline is currently finishing her doctoral degree at the University of Connecticut, where she studies voice with celebrated mezzo-soprano Meredith Ziegler.  In 2018, she was one of four singers selected to perform in a master class with multi Grammy Award winner, Joyce DiDonato. Caroline performed numerous roles with the UCONN Opera Theater, including: Prince Charmant (Cendrillon), Catherine (Le Mariage aux lanternes), the Abbess (Suor Angelica), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Cousin Hebe (H.M.S. Pinafore), Hansel (Hansel and Gretel), and Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus).  She has also performed with the Hartford Opera Theater as Petra in A Little Night Music.

In 2013, Caroline made her European recital debut with pianist Sonja Schönamsgruber, giving performances in Leutershausen and Dinkelsbuhl, Germany. Their program of German Lieder was met with enthusiastic reviews; Volker Schmidt of the Fränkische Landeszeitung wrote, “Caroline O’Dwyer sang with high virtuosity and drama in an expressive, lyric mezzo-soprano voice…Highly sensitive, she sang from her heart, from her soul, with much poignancy and a warm color.”  The following year, she was invited to return to Germany for a second recital program with Sonja and her husband, German baritone Ronny Rickfelder

Caroline earned her Master’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she was a finalist in the Jessie Kneisel Lieder Competition in 2013, and her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Connecticut, where she was the winner of the annual Concerto Competition in 2010.