BIOGRAPHY

Marie Herrington is a Baltimore/DC area based soprano, keyboardist, and composer, who works to culminate all of the hidden beauties of the classical world with the ever-growing world of post-classical/new music; she works to share these beauties by performing the most highly effective and interesting new music, writing her own music, and sharing her teaching expertise with her 15 member teaching studio. Some of Marie’s most favorable musical accomplishments are getting to sing with Susan Boyle as part of her 2015 United States Tour; getting to solo with the famous 9-member ensemble hailing from Nasheville, TN, the Fisk Jubilee Singers; getting to sing with the Boston POPS under the baton of film composer, John Williams; and getting to work 1 on 1 with the most performed living opera composer, Jake Heggie. Marie has 15+ years of experience as a trained opera singer, having worked with prestigious vocal masters such as Luciano Pavarotti’s vocal coach, Enza Ferrari, and Joan Patenaude-Yarnell of the Curtis Institute. Marie’s most recent opera production (which got canceled due to the spread of Covid-19), was to perform the role of Prince Orlafsky in Johann Strauss’ production of Die Fledermaus, conducted by Metropolitan Opera conductor, Gregory Buchalter. With extensive opera training beginning with voice lessons from Duke University Professor, Dr. Elizabeth Linnartz, Marie has been in a number of operas for such a young person. She was seen as Miss Bingley in the world premiere of Kirke Mechem’s Pride and Prejudice, as well as covering for the lead mezzo soprano role of Elizabeth Bennet. She also recently performed the role of Hansel in Peabody Opera's Hansel and Gretel, and La Maestra delle Novizie in Puccini's Suor Angelica. She has worked with local opera company, Bel Cantanti Opera, and was seen as “Dunyasha” in their 2019 production of the Tsar’s Bride. Marie also has vast experience in musical theatre and in 2018 performed the role of Ninotchka Yoschenko in the musical Silk Stockings in Washington, D.C. Marie has also earned a lot of press as a keyboardist, being a member of the Baltimore Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and working as an organist and music director in both the Carolinas and the Maryland/DC area for eight years. Some of Marie’s projects this year include getting to start her own concert series here in North East Baltimore, hosting up and coming local instrumentalists and composers, and later in the year she is looking forward to performing BK Zervigon’s highly influential work detailing the dark tragedies of the heavily polluted and destructed gulf coast, titled: Breach, in New Orleans, Louisiana. 
Marie is also a composer herself; she began writing choral music at age 11, and when in college, held performances of her compositions; one of those performances was of her piece “Comfortable,” which is for four voices and live electronics, and was performed at the end of the 2018 spring semester as part of the computer music program’s final spring concert at Peabody Conservatory. The singers were none other than Charlotte Bagwell, soprano; David Sexton, tenor; Lorenzo Zapata, baritone; and Marie herself, alto. Marie continuously composes pieces for voice and live/pre-recorded electronics through Alluvium Ensemble, as well as through her church. For the past two Christmases, all of the organ and instrumental music (other than Hallelujah Chorus, and other parts of Handel’s Watermusic), were original compositions of hers. 
To honor the substance of her work, Marie has won many awards in fields such as classical and musical theater singing, such as winning first place in the state-wide National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition every year from 2012 all the way up to 2016. Marie is also an alumna of the prestige program YoungArts, as well as being the first place winner of the International MasterPlayers voice competition in 2018. Marie had a young start to the world of projecting her voice over an orchestra with her first ever debut with an orchestra being performing with the Durham Symphony of Durham, North Carolina, at age 14. Marie has performed with other orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony, the Boston Symphony, and the Boston POPS as part of the Tanglewood Institute.