Jazmine Saunders

Jazmine Saunders is a soprano from Rochester, New York currently in her first year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. During the Met’s 2024–25 season, she will make her company debut as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro, cover Pip in Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, and cover two of the voices of the Unborn Children in Die Frau ohne Schatten. Additionally, this season she will cover the role of Claire Devon in the United States premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners at Opera Philadelphia. Recent operatic engagements include Shannon in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’s The Righteous and covering Giannetta in L’Elisir d’Amore at Santa Fe Opera and covering Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Wolf Trap Opera. On the concert stage, she has appeared as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with Glens Falls Symphony, Mozart’s Great Mass in C-minor with the City Choir of Washington and was a participant in Joyce DiDonato’s Master Class series at Carnegie Hall. In addition to her extensive stage experience, she has received numerous awards from many prestigious vocal competitions, including the Audience Choice Award from Houston Grand Opera's 2024 Eleanor McCollum Competition, the Encouragement Award from the 2022 Opera Index Vocal Competition, first place in the Developing Artist Division of the 2023 Duncan Williams Voice Competition, second place in the 2023 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition (Opera Division), and New York District winner and recipient of the Encouragement Award from the Eastern Region of the Met’s 2023–24 Laffont Competition. She is an alumna of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist Program, the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists’ Vocal Academy, and the Seagle Festival Emerging Artist Program. She holds degrees in voice from the Eastman School of Music, where she received the William Warfield Scholarship and graduated with Highest Distinction, and the Juilliard School, where she was a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship.