Praised by Opera magazine for her “agile, glamorous presence,” two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been called a “luminous standout” by The New York Times and “equal parts poise, radiance and elegant directness” by Opera News. Cooke has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Seattle Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux and Gran Teatre del Liceu, among others, and frequently, with over 80 symphony orchestras worldwide, the works of Mahler. In 2022, Cooke was appointed as co-director of the Lehrer Vocal Institute at the Music Academy of the West. Her album how do I find you was nominated for a 2022 Grammy for Best Vocal Solo.
In the 2025–26 season, Cooke returns to Houston as Hänsel in Houston Grand Opera’s Hänsel und Gretel opposite Mané Galoyan, making her directorial debut leading the company’s family day presentation of the opera. She later joins Seattle Opera for her title role debut in Bizet’s Carmen, in a production by Paul Curran. In recital, Cooke tours her program Of Thee I Sing with pianist Myra Huang, appearing at the Kennedy Center presented by the Vocal Arts Society of D.C., Baylor University’s Distinguished Artists Series, Park Avenue Armory and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. On the concert stage, she sings Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, followed by the world premiere of Alex Turley’s the ocean’s dream of itself at the Grand Teton Music Festival, conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. She joins Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra for Verdi’s Requiem at Saratoga Performing Arts Center and appears with the Baltimore Symphony, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, a signature piece of hers. She sings Handel’s Messiah with Music of the Baroque and Jane Glover and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cristian Măcelaru. She returns to the San Francisco Symphony for Mozart’s Requiem conducted by Manfred Honeck and joins the Wiener Symphoniker in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 conducted by Petr Popelka. Additional concert appearances include Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Sydney Symphony and Sir Donald Runnicles and Verdi’s Requiem with the Detroit Symphony. She joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players for Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, which she also sings with Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonika.
Cooke began the 2024–25 season with a return to the Bard Festival as Marguerite in La damnation de Faust followed by Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde at the Gstaad Festival, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. On the operatic stage, she debuted at La Monnaie de Munt as Emilie Ekdahl in the world premiere of Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek’s Fanny and Alexander opposite Thomas Hampson and Anne Sofie von Otter in a production by Ivo van Hove, and she returned to Houston Grand Opera in her role debut as Venus in Francesca Zambello’s production of Tannhäuser. On the concert stage, Cooke reprised much of her most celebrated repertoire, singing Mahler’s Second Symphony with Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Daniel Harding, San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen in his final performances as music director, and Vienna Radio Symphony and Marin Alsop at the Wiener Konzerthaus. She sang Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Karina Canellakis, the Cologne Philharmonic and Cristian Măcelaru and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, where she also sang the Rückert-Lieder. She joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel for a program of Alma Mahler, which she also brought to Royal Festival Hall in London with the London Philharmonia and Marin Alsop. Other concert engagements included Mozart’s Requiem with the Oslo Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Schönberg’s Gurrelieder with the Vienna Symphoniker, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with St. Louis Symphony and Gemma New, and a concert with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra featuring Des Knaben Wunderhorn with her husband, baritone Kelly Markgraf. In recital, Cooke returned to Wigmore Hall for a recital with pianist Malcolm Martineau and to Carnegie Hall for Shostakovich’s From Jewish Folk Poetry with Susanna Phillips, Brandon Jovanovich and pianist Evgeny Kissin.
Cooke opened the 2023–24 season with a return to the San Francisco Opera, reprising the role of Laurene Jobs in Mason Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs which won the 2019 Grammy for Best Opera Recording. She made role debuts as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde at Opéra de Rouen and as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at Houston Grand Opera, conducted by Dame Jane Glover. She sang world premieres by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at Dallas Opera and by Scott Ordway in a song cycle on the Stanford Live series. In concert, she returned to the San Francisco Symphony for Pulcinella and to the Oregon Symphony and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for Messiah, and she performed and recorded Corigliano’s One Sweet Morning with Nashville Symphony. Cooke gave recitals at Boston Conservatory, Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, in Stanford, and at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Cooke’s 2022–23 season began at Houston Grand Opera in her role debut as Thirza in Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers. On the concert stage, she performed throughout the U.S. and abroad, including in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Houston Symphony conducted by Juraj Valčuha, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Wiener Konzerthaus, Michael Tilson Thomas’ Meditations on Rilke with the New York Philharmonic conducted by the composer, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra alongside Gemma New, and Mozart’s Requiem with the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä. She made her debut with Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, and the Utah Symphony in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, which she later performed with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert. She made returns to the Chicago Symphony for works by Vivaldi, to The Philadelphia Orchestra for Messiah and to the Kansas City Symphony for Hindemith’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. Special collaborations on the recital stage included Jake Heggie’s Intonations: Songs for the Violins of Hope with Music of Remembrance, recitals with guitarist Jason Vieaux at San Francisco Performances and Round Top Festival, and a recital featuring how do I find you at Kaufman Music Center. The season prior saw Cooke’s return to the Met for her role debut as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and Eduige in Rodelinda and marked the release of how do I find you on the Pentatone label. Featuring songs by Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli and Jimmy Lopez, among others, the Grammy-nominated recording is intended as a tribute to both the struggles and hopes of those affected by the pandemic. All 17 songs were written in 2020. Cooke performed the world premiere in January 2022 as part of the San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers Series.
Previously scheduled engagements included appearances at the Metropolitan Opera as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel and at San Francisco Opera as Offred in Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale. Concert performances were to include Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Orchestre National de France under the direction of Trevor Pinnock, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honeck and the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Spano, both in Atlanta and on tour at Carnegie Hall in New York. Other previously scheduled concert engagements included Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Minnesota Orchestra and music director Osmo Vänskä; reuniting with Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic for concerts of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection at David Geffen Hall (New York), Barbican Hall (London) and The Royal Concertgebouw (Amsterdam); as well as Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Previously scheduled recital engagements included a duo recital tour alongside soprano Susanna Phillips and a solo recital of songs at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Cooke has performed with opera companies worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Parallèle, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Israeli Opera and English National Opera. During her career, she has been engaged by over 80 orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, New Zealand Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal, New World Symphony and Festival de la Côte Saint-André, under leading conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Riccardo Muti, Michael Tilson Thomas, Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Edo de Waart, Trevor Pinnock, Harry Bicket, Pinchas Zukerman, Gerard Schwarz, Riccardo Frizza, James Gaffigan, Vasily Petrenko, Sir Mark Elder, John Nelson and Krzysztof Urbański. Cooke has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill and Zankel halls, Palau de la Música de València, Hollywood Bowl, Theater an der Wien, Alice Tully Hall, Auditorio Nacional de Música, Elbphilharmonie and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Previous festival appearances have included the Spoleto Festival USA, Aspen Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, New York Festival of Song, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. A devoted interpreter of new music, Cooke has premiered works by Mark Adamo, Mason Bates, William Bolcom, Pierre Jalbert, Laura Kaminsky, Lowell Liebermann, Nico Muhly, John Musto, Marc Neikrug, Kevin Puts, Jimmy Lopez, Augusta Read Thomas and Joby Talbot.
As a dedicated recitalist, Cooke was presented by Young Concert Artists in her widely acclaimed New York and Washington debuts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and the Kennedy Center. She has also appeared in recital at Alice Tully Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center and the 92nd Street Y. Her recordings can be found on the Hyperion, BIS, Chandos, Pentatone, Naxos, Bridge Records, Yarlung, GPR Records and Sono Luminus labels. Most recently, she appears on recordings including Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer on Pentatone, L’enfance du Christ with Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony on Chandos, Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs on Pentatone (2019 Grammy for Best Opera Recording), Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra on BIS, Michael Tilson Thomas’ Meditations on Rilke with the San Francisco Symphony (2021 Grammy for Best Classical Compendium) and Sasha Cooke LIVE, a collection of her performances at the Music@Menlo chamber music festival released on their label.
Sasha Cooke is a graduate of Rice University and The Juilliard School. She also attended the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute, Wolf Trap Foundation, Marlboro Music Festival, Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and Seattle Opera and Central City Opera’s Young Artist Training Programs.