Symone Harcum

Soprano Symone Harcum begins the 2024-2025 season with a return to one of her favorite roles, Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In the new year, she will make her house debut at Opera Philadelphia in the role of Léontine in Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ L’Amant Anonyme. Last season, she debuted the role of Mimí in La Bohème at Minnesota Opera. In recent years, she enjoyed a string of successful role and house debuts, including performances at the Glimmerglass Festival as Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen, Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo, and Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Minnesota Opera. At the Lyric Opera of Chicago, she sang the role of Sandra in the world premiere of Will Liverman’s Factotum. In 2022, she appeared with Minnesota Opera as Léontine in The Anonymous Lover, Micaëla in Carmen, and with Virginia Opera as La Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro.

Other notable roles and achievements include first place in the 2021 Opera Ithaca Competition, being a 2020 finalist in both the Tri-Cities Opera Competition and the New York International Opera + Premiere Opera Vocal Competition, and securing first place in both the National Society of Arts and Letters-DC Dorothy Lincoln-Smith Voice Competition and the Sylvia Green Voice Competition in 2018. She has performed as Mascha and covered the role of Lisa in Pique Dame (Des Moines Metro Opera), Clorinda in La Cenerentola, High Priestess and covered the title role in Aïda (Virginia Opera), Bea in Three Decembers(Opera Maine), Krystyna Zywulska in Out of Darkness: Two Remain, and Gertrude in Hansel und Gretel (Peabody Opera).

After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from Norfolk State University in 2012, she worked as a choral director in Norfolk Public Schools until 2016. Symone earned her Master’s of Music from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University and continues her studies with Denyce Graves and Margaret Baroody. Last year, Symone joined the voice faculty at her alma mater, Norfolk State University.