Praised for her “sizeable voice that captured all of the vacillating emotions” (The New York Times), Karen Slack is “not only one of the nation’s most celebrated sopranos, but a leading voice in changing and making spaces in classical music”(Trilloquy).
Slack is the winner of numerous competitions and awards, including the Montserrat Caballé International Competition, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and Marian Anderson ICON Award, among others. She is a recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence.
A major highlight this season is the nationwide tour of Slack’s new commissioning project, African Queens, an evening-length recital of new art songs celebrating the history and legacy of seven African queens, revered as rulers but not widely heralded in the Western world. The program weaves historical narrative through new works by acclaimed composers Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson along with carefully selected traditional repertoire and passages of spoken text and thematic artwork. Slack performed the world premiere of African Queens at the 2024 Ravinia Festival, followed by performances at co-commissioners Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, 92NY, Washington Performing Arts, Denver Friends of Chamber Music, University of Toronto, and Newport Classical Festival.
In recent seasons, Slack debuted with the New York Philharmonic, performing Beethoven’s Ah, Perfido! and as solo guest artist with Chamber Music Detroit in Of Thee I Sing, curated by Slack as a call for racial justice and an appeal to the healing power of love; she appeared alongside the Pacifica Quartet in works by Beethoven, Price, and James Lee III – whose featured work, A Double Standard, was commissioned for Slack and the Quartet by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Detroit, and Shriver Concert Series. She appeared in two separate world premieres by Hannibal Lokumbe, as soloist with the Nashville Symphony (The Jonah People) and Oklahoma City Philharmonic (Trials, Tears, Transcendence: The Journey of Clara Luper). She premiered Jasmine Barnes’ Songs of Paul, a tribute to Paul Robeson, with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Slack has performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder, and the Verdi Requiem with various orchestras throughout the United States. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as Agnes Sorel in Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and performed as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe’s Healing Tones with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She debuted the role of Billie in the 2019 world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. She has performed on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, and San Francisco Opera, among others.
Her debut album Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY® Award in the category Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. It comprises the unpublished songs of Florence Price, highlighting Price’s affinity with themes of faith, nature, love and loss, accompanied by long-overdue published editions of Price’s music.