About Patrice
Patrice Michaels writes music with words, favoring themes of social justice and American history. Her cycle, THE LONG VIEW: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs has received significant critical acclaim, anchoring the nationally touring dramatic concert “Notorious RBG in Song.” Michaels’ choral work, “Refuge” commissioned by Classical Movements’ Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program premiered at the Kennedy Center in July 2019. Commissioned by The National Constitution Center, Lyric Fest of Philadelphia and Musicians Club of Women, RESOLVED: Songs of Women’s Suffrage and the 19th Amendment debuted in 2020 as an NBC/Peacock video featuring mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Other Michaels works include incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a one-act opera on Euripides’ The Trojan Women, and the children’s show A Song for Harmonica. She is currently developing the opera JANE DOE: The Life and Times of Pauli Murray. Her bilingual song set “Un viaje en la canción/A Journey in Song” and her libretto contribution to Jennifer Higdon’s new work “Steps to Justice” are both scheduled for publication in the spring, with performances of the Higdon piece for Pacifica Quartet and narrator at the 92nd Street Y and in DC, commissioned by Washington Performing Arts.
Michaels’ vocal virtuosity in both live and recorded performances rank her as “A formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), possessing “a voice that is light, rich and flexible” (Opera News). Her many recordings (for Albany, Amadis, Cedille, Neos and Decca) range from baroque chamber concerts, through the groundbreaking and much-lauded Divas of Mozart’s Day, to explorations of 20th century repertoire and new jazz-inflected classical works. Ms. Michaels’ appearances include Shanghai, Czech National, St. Louis, Atlanta and Minnesota Orchestras, New York’s Concert Royal and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. She debuted with the Cleveland Opera in Fidelio, sang in Candide at Lyric Opera of Chicago, performed in Menotti’s The Medium (Chicago Opera Theater on Cedille Records. Recitals include the Festival of Contemporary Music in Havana, Music at the Supreme Court, Harvard University and The Schubert Club., She has been a guest clinician at such institutions as the University of Tel Aviv Buchman-Mehta School, Mexico City’s Escuela Superior de Musica, and ISA Havana.
Patrice teaches in the Voice/Opera program at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. She is a graduate of Pomona College and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and a diplomate of the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada.