Biography

Possessing a voice praised by the Cleveland Plain Dealer for its “ravishing fullness,” GRAMMY® Award-winning soprano Jessica Rivera “has established herself as a singer of uncommon vocal luster and musical intelligence” (San Francisco Classical Review). The dimension and spirituality with which she infuses her performances on international concert and opera stages has garnered Ms. Rivera unique artistic collaborations with many of today’s most celebrated composers, including John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jonathan Leshnoff, Nico Muhly, and Paola Prestini, and has brought her together with such esteemed conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, James Conlon, Robert Spano, Markus Stenz, Bernard Haitink, Teddy Abrams, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

In the 2024–2025 season, Rivera returns to the Columbus Symphony Orchestra as soprano soloist in Mahler’s Second Symphony, joins the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Indiana for Fauré’s Requiem, and reunites with Robert Spano — with whom she has collaborated for over a decade — in Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem for the Rhode Island Philharmonic’s season finale.

A champion of new music, Rivera recently gave the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s The Right of Your Senses alongside the National Children’s Chorus and the American Youth Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall. A major voice in the rich culture of Latin American music and composers, Rivera recently performed in Antonio Lysy’s Te Amo Argentina at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica in May 2023. She has also sung Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem in its premiere with the Houston Symphony, and later with the Nashville Symphony and Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

Recent orchestral highlights include Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos with the Minnesota Orchestra, Gabriela Lena Frank’s La Centinela y la Paloma with the Aspen Philharmonic, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 at the Grand Teton Music Festival and with the Detroit Symphony, and Mozart’s Requiem with the Louisville Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony. She has sung Mahler’s Fourth with Colombia’s Orquestra Filarmónica de Bogotá, Strauss’s Orchesterlieder with Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa, the role of Eileen in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with Seattle Symphony, and Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Rivera has worked closely with John Adams throughout her career and received international praise portraying Kumudha in the world premiere of A Flowering Tree directed by Peter Sellars at Vienna’s New Crowned Hope Festival. Under Adams’s baton, she has sung the role with the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, and London Symphony Orchestra. Rivera made her European operatic debut as Kitty Oppenheimer in Sellars’s production of Adams’s Doctor Atomic with the Netherlands Opera and joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera for its production of Doctor Atomic under the direction of Alan Gilbert.

Ms. Rivera made her Santa Fe Opera debut in the summer of 2005 as Nuria in the world premiere of the revised edition of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar. She reprised the role for the 2007 GRAMMY® Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Robert Spano, and bowed in the Peter Sellars staging at Lincoln Center and Opera Boston, as well as in performances at the Barbican Centre, the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Cincinnati Opera, and the Ojai, Ravinia, and New Zealand International Arts Festivals.

Rivera’s extensive discography includes releases on the Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, Naxos, Telarc, Urtext, VIA Records, Opus Arte, CSO Resound, and ASO Media labels. Her most recent recording, an Homage to Victoria de los Angeles, was released in 2022 on Urtext. Ms. Rivera serves on the vocal faculty at Miami University in Oxford, OH. jessicarivera.com

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