USU Music Alum featured in 'Opera News'

As a vocal performance major in the Department of Music at Utah State University, Tamara Mumford was extremely busy. Today, she balances an impressive international performing career with family demands.

 

The talented singer was recently profiled in the January 2010 edition of Opera News.

 

“Tamara Mumford’s career seems to be in perfect balance: she has been able to combine an enviable international performance schedule with the demands of a new family,” the Opera News piece said. “Her golden, full-bodied tone makes her voice difficult to categorize; for the moment she is poised between the mezzo-soprano and contralto camps.”

 

Mumford graduated from USU in 2003. The list of her activities and accomplishments at USU is long and impressive. She was an original, founding member of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation Opera Quartet, and continued as a three-year member. She was a Music Department Concerto Competition winner and was a National Association of Teachers of Singing Northern Utah winner three times. On the USU stage, she had a leading role in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers and played the title role of Lizbeth in a 20th century opera about Lizzie Borden. She sang the leading role of Cinderella in Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola with the Utah Festival Opera Company.

 

To cap her accomplishments at USU, Mumford was the 2002 Talent of the Year recipient at the annual Robins Awards — the top campus recognition for student accomplishment.

 

Following her graduation from USU, Mumford traveled east and is a graduate of the Met’s — that’s the Metropolitan Opera Company — Lindemann Young Artists Development Program. She made her Met debut as Laura in Luisa Miller in 2006.

 

The Opera News profile previews her season’s engagements with the Met, including Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos, First Serving Woman in Elektra in December 2009, and Third Lady in Zauberflote and the Abbess in Suor Angelica, both last fall.

 

“The Music Department at Utah State University is proud of Tamara Mumford and her accomplishments,” said Craig Jessop, USU Music Department head. “She took advantage of her opportunities to study and perform as an undergraduate and has gone on to a very successful career. Her work at USU can serve as an example and inspiration for today’s students. With hard work, dedication and talent, there are no limits.”

 

 

Writer: Patrick Williams, 435-797-1354, patrick.williams@usu.edu