These concerts are the North Carolina Symphony debut for Kirsten MacKinnon.

In the 2024/25 season, Canadian soprano Kirsten MacKinnon has made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Also Jess in Jeanine Tesori and George Brant’s Grounded and starred as Contessa Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with the Opera Regio di Torino. In concert, she has performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Artis—Naples and Orchestre symphonique de Québec.

Recent operatic highlights have included starring roles with Canadian Opera Company, Glyndebourne Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Oper Frankfurt. MacKinnon has performed in concert with orchestras including the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Vancouver and Toronto.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, MacKinnon held the Alfred Greenberg Memorial fellowship there and was also a grant holder of the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation for Young Canadian Opera Singers. Based in Montréal, she was a Grand Finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and Grand Prize winner at the Concours musical international de Montréal in Quebec as well as in Classical Singer Magazine’s voice competition.