Angela L Owens

Internationally recognized for her “beautifully musical” (The London Times) performances, Angela L. Owens began the 2016-2017 season as a guest lecturer and recitalist for the Earl Hall Artist Series at Columbia University. Other recent engagements include performances with the West Village String Quartet in Harlem’s Highbridge Park and a live adaptation of WQXR’s Terrance McKnight’s, A Beautiful Symphony of Brotherhood for New Jersey’s UPAC theater. Also this season, Angela premiered composer Derek Cooper’s work Of Life and Growing Up, and she performed at the 2017 Freize Arts Festival, in conjunction with conceptual artist Adam Pendleton’s installation and exhibit.

2015-16 season highlights include concerts at The American Church in Paris with chef de chant à l’Opéra national de Paris, Morgane Fauchois-Prado, and performances with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Chautauqua Institution, as well with The Harris Arts Center in Atlanta, Ga., presented by the Roland Hayes Museum. Angela also debuted works of several American composers at The National Opera Center in New York and for the Composers Now Festival with Tania León. In opera, she sang the role of Maxine McNair in Richard Pearson Thomas’s Blood of Angels for Manhattan School of Music’s Page to Stage Series, co-sponsored by Encompass New Opera and American Opera Projects. Angela also sang the role of Alice Ruth Moore in Scottish composer Richard Thompson’s opera, The Mask in the Mirror and subsequently recorded the role in the spring of 2016 under the baton of Maestro Stephen Tucker with members of the L.A. Opera orchestra.
Angela’s 2013-14 season included international appearances at the La Folle Journeé festival in Nantes with the critically acclaimed American Spiritual Ensemble, and at the Szeged Open Air Festival with the Szeged Symphony Orchestra, singing the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess. Of her portrayal, the Hungarian Daily described her “beautiful soprano” as “impressive and powerfully erotic.” Following Hungary, Angela’s season continued back in her home state with further performances of Porgy and Bess at Atlanta Opera, conducted by Keith Lockhart. She also sang Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte for the company’s annual “Opera With Edge” series.
Previous notable operatic roles include Blanche (The Dialogues of the Carmelites), Miss Jessel (The Turn of the Screw), Miss Silverpeal (The Impresario) The Sandman/Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel), Despina (Così Fan Tutte), and the roles of Bess and Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in over twenty opera houses and concert halls throughout the U.S., New Zealand, Egypt, Ireland, Whales and England. Also of note are previous debuts with Dallas Opera, West Australian Opera, Opéra Comique and a nationally televised Live from Lincoln Center performance with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Lorin Maazel. Angela’s experience also extends to the concert stage – her repertoire including Handel’s Messiah and Dettingen Te Deum, Schubert’s Stabat Mater and Mass in G, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Faure’s Requiem, Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer and Mozart’s Coronation Mass.
Her versatility and acting skills have produced proud achievements in music theater, as well – credits which include The Good Fairy in Pinocchio, Alice in I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road, Mrs. Brown in Me and My Gal, Flo in Good News, Hattie in Kiss Me Kate, Susannah in Tintypes, Belladova in Phantom and Josephine Baker in the World Premiere of Dodsworth with Hal Linden at Casa Mañana in Fort Worth, Texas. Television credits include ID Discovery’s Shadow of Doubt and the Netflix Marvel Comics Series Luke Cage.
She has worked with such stage directors as Lemuel Wade, Charles Randolph Wright, Baayork Lee, Robyn Orlin and Hope Clarke and with such conductors in opera and concert as Keith Lockhart, Stefan Lano, Julius P. Williams, Mara Waldman, Stephen Tucker, Wayne Marshall and Lorin Maazel.
Angela can be heard as The Narrator in Egil Hovland’s Saul, conducted by Donald Neuen for SouthMark Custom Recordings.