Creativity, theatricality and virtuosity have long defined the musical adventures of two-time Grammy Award-winning soprano, vocalist and actress Hila Plitmann. She brings emotionally charged fearlessness, unique expressivity and mesmerizing drama to her performances in opera, concert, film and theater.
Dazzling audiences with not only traditional repertory, she’s widely recognized as one of today’s foremost interpreters of contemporary music. She regularly premieres new works by a diverse array of composers including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frank Zappa, Pulitzer/Grammy winner Aaron Jay Kernis, Thomas Ades, Emmy Award winner Jeff Beal, Xiaogang YE, Paola Prestini, Danaë Vlasse and Grammy/Oscar winner John Corigliano.
Just one year after graduating from Juilliard — and on only two weeks notice — she premiered a new work by Pulitzer Prize winner David Del Tredici with the New York Philharmonic. Since then, her appearances as soloist have included the Los Angeles, New York and Israel Philharmonics; Chicago, Boston, London, BBC, National, St. Louis, Atlanta, Albany, Detroit, Hamburg, Stockholm and Melbourne Symphonies; and Minnesota and Orpheus Chamber Orchestras. She’s collaborated with some of the world’s foremost conductors, such as Leonard Slatkin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kurt Masur, Marin Alsop, Thomas Adès, Giancarlo Guerrero and Robert Spano.
She can be heard as featured vocal soloist on film soundtracks for The Da Vinci Code, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Hail Caesar and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Her discography includes Corigliano’s song-cycle Mr. Tambourine Man and Danaë Vlasse’s Mythologies (both winning Grammy’s for Best Classical Vocal Performance); Andrea Clearfield’s Women of Valor with Tovah Feldshuh; Richard Danielpour’s Toward a Season and Peace, and Grammy Award-winning Passion of Yeshua; Eric Whitacre’s Good Night Moon and George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill.
Hilá first took the opera stage at age fourteen with the Israeli Opera, and she continues to perform with companies across the United States, including notable roles in works by Stephen Schwartz, Mark Adamo, Gerald Barry, and Yuval Sharon and Annie Gosfield.
Having received the coveted Sony ES Prize for her outstanding contribution to the vocal arts, she performs not only traditional recital, orchestral and operatic repertory, but also in boundary-pushing projects in non-classical genres, film, theater and beyond. With prolific jazz guitarist Shea Welsh and tabla virtuoso Aditya Kalyanpur, she recently co-founded Renaissance Heart, a global music project melding classical, jazz, folk, rock and world music.
Nominated as Best Actress in a Musical by the Los Angeles Ovation Awards and L.A. Ticketholder Awards for her performance of Eric Whitacre’s groundbreaking electro-musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, she sang, acted, danced and fought in long martial arts battles nightly for a seven-week sold-out run. A tour-de-force, Theatre Mania raved she “fights like a warrior and sings like the angel she portrays.”
Her innovative residencies and workshops take her to campuses across the United States. Bringing diverse pedagogical methods, she combines technical focus, tools and approaches for connecting, and a sense of inner confidence, centering and presence. Hila's work is informed by her love of poetry, focus on discipline (she holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do), and engagement with nature. She hopes her artistic risk-taking emboldens audiences to expand their comfort zones.