Soprano Samantha Pickett is from Kitchener, Ontario and is a recent Masters of Opera and Voice graduate at McGill University (Montreal, QC) under Professor Sanford Sylvan. Miss Pickett is an alumna of Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, ON), where she earned a Bachelor’s of Voice Performance (2012) and Opera Diploma (2013), studying with Kimberly Barber.

Engagements with Opera McGill in 2015 included Contessa Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi, as well as understudy for the title role in Suor Angelica. In Opera McGill’s Lisl Wirth Black Box Festival, Miss Pickett has been featured in excerpts as Magda Sorel in The Consul (2015), Alice Ford in Falstaff and Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello (2014).

Miss Pickett’s other recent roles include Micaëla in Carmen and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera NUOVA), and Elle in La Voix humaine (Opera McGill). Credits with Opera Laurier include Countess Almaviva and Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, Mrs. Demers in Neil Weisensel’s City Workers in Love, Lady Gerstein in Canadian composer Glenn James’ One Lump or Two, and Die Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte.

In the summer of 2015, Miss Pickett was delighted to debut at the Banff Centre in the world premiere of Crush, performing the role of Anna. Miss Pickett is a recipient of a Joseph Armand Bombardier Master’s CGS Grant, courtesy of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Through this grant, Miss Pickett launched The Emerging Project, a text and video webseries chronicling the triumphs and struggles of the international operatic community. She now lives in Toronto, ON, where she studies with Wendy Nielsen.