BIOGRAPHY
A Minneapolis native, lyric coloratura soprano Tina O’Malley has been recognized for her “wonderful presence onstage” and “gorgeous vocal color.”
Tina has distinguished her artistry in numerous competitions, including 1st Place in Pittsburgh Opera Festival's Mildred Miller International Voice Competition (2025), 1st Place in the Camille Coloratura Awards (2025), 1st Place in the Schubert Club's Bruce P. Carlson Competition (2025), and Honorable Mention in the Musician's Club for Women Voice Competition (2026).
Tina most recently spent the 25/26 Season with Opera Memphis as a Handorf Company Artist. Among her many engagements at Opera Memphis, she performed the roles of Young Woman in composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Jerre Dye's one-woman chamber opera A.E. Reverie, Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Freda Ward in the world premiere of Pretty Little Room by Robert Patterson and Jerre Dye.
In the 24/25 season, Tina celebrated her role debut as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Dramatic Voices Program Berlin. Prior to this engagement, she participated as a Studio Artist with Opera Neo as Armida (Cover) in Haydn's Armida, in partnership with the Hungarian State Opera, and as a member of the chorus in L'elisir d'amore. Tina performed the soprano solos in Orff's Carmina Burana as a guest soloist with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra and Choirs at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, MD under the baton of Maestro Andrew Grams.
Tina has also seen as Clorinda (La Cenerentola) and Tzeitel (Fiddler on the Roof) with Bay View Music Festival, Adele (Die Fledermaus) and First Sprite (Cendrillon) with Peabody Institute, Armida (Rinaldo) with Chicago Summer Opera, and Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) with FIO Italia. During her time at Peabody Institute, Tina also performed multiple opera and musical theater scenes, including Madame Herz (Der Schauspieldirektor), Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Carrie Pipperidge (Carousel), and Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte).
Enjoying the challenge and expressive possibilities of new music, Tina has been a collaborator in multiple new projects. In addition to her work at Opera Memphis, she performed the role of Young Pauline Viardot in Michael Ching's new opera Notes on Viardot with Music on Site, Inc. in Wichita, KS in 2024 and she worked with composer Andrew Faulkenberry in spring 2023 to workshop and premiere the role of Petra in scenes from his new opera, The Chisel. In Spring 2024, Tina was also a featured performer in "The New River," a dedication concert to the 150th birthday of Schoenberg and Ives and their musical legacies, performing pieces by the featured composers, Luigi Nono and Kaija Saariaho at Baltimore's An Die Musik Live.
In addition to Tina's recent competition wins, she has been named a semifinalist in the Partner for the Arts Annual Vocal Competition in both 2025 and 2026. In Spring 2024, Tina won first place in the Sylvia Green Competition with her performance of Darius Milhaud's Quatre Chansons de Ronsard at Peabody Conservatory. As part of the prize, she performed the work with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Joseph Young in October 2024. Tina was a finalist in the Schubert Club's 2022 and 2023 Bruce P. Carlson Competition and won the Thelma Hunter Award in 2022. She was also a winner of the University of St. Thomas’s Festival Orchestra Competition every year from 2019 to 2021 and was the winner of the Minnesota College & University Council for Music Award in 2020. In December 2019, Tina performed the solo in J. Aaron McDermid’s Earth from the larger choral work “From Light to Light” at Minneapolis’s Orchestra Hall, which was broadcast across the country on PBS.
Tina earned her MM in Vocal Performance from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. She also graduated summa cum laude from the University of St. Thomas in May 2021 with a BA in Music and Digital Media. She studies under acclaimed soprano Elizabeth Futral.
This summer, Tina will return to Opera Neo as an Apprentice Artist and perform Mirinda in Vivaldi's Arsilda and Fiorilla in Rossini's Il turco in Italia.
