Biography

Samantha Lane Talmadge received her Master of Music in Vocal Performance in May 2009 from Yale University School of Music. Samantha has joined the faculty at Community Music School of Centerbrook, CT and the New London Thames Valley Music School, and is also an instructor of voice at Connecticut College in New London, CT. Samantha is a proud member of the New York Singing Teachers Association and received the 2012 Janet Pranschke scholarship to complete a series of professional development courses in Vocal Pedagogy. In the summer of 2012, Ms. Talmadge will make her professional musical theater debut in the Ivoryton Playhouse production of Oliver.  

Recently, Samantha co-founded The Sustenance Project, a group of professional musicians performing a wide variety of music to benefit various charity organizations. She also recently completed a series of engagements with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915 and was also the soprano soloist in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the New Britain Symphony Orchestra.  In December of 2011, she appeared as the guest soloist with Cappella Cantorum for their Messiah Sing-along.

Samantha was a finalist in the Opera Birmingham Vocal Competition in May 2009 and again performed Barber's Knoxville with Chatter Chamber Orchestra in the summer of 2009. She appeared with Yale Opera as Pamina in The Magic Flute, excerpts of The Bartered Bride as Marenka, and as Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo. She performed the role of Rosalinde in Yale Opera's production of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus and also played Tatiana in excerpts of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. In the summer of 2008, Samantha was in Milan, Italy where she sang with the Orchestra Sonfonica di Milano, Giuseppe Verdi, in Mascagni's opera Il Si and Franz Lehàr's operetta Frühling. In that same summer, Samantha played the role of Micäela in Peter Brook's Tragedy of Carmen at the Alba Music Festival in Italy.

Prior to her graduate studies at Yale, she received her undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of New Mexico. After completing her studies there, Samantha was the Assistant Choir Director at Las Cruces High School in Las Cruces, New Mexico for the 2006-2007 school year. As a performer, she has received high vocal honors as a National Opera Association Vocal Competition finalist in 2003 and 2004, and was the first place winner of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Vocal Competition--Rio Grande Chapter in 2003. Samantha has been a regular performer with professional companies such as Musica Romantica and Teatro Nuevo Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She sang with the Santa Fe Opera's outreach program in Donizetti's The Nightbell, and has also performed with the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Mozart's Requiem.