Tracy Cowart

Tracy Cowart (mezzo-soprano) enjoys a wide range of vocal interests, from twelfth-century polyphony to contemporary art music. Praised by the New York Times as “the real attraction” with a voice that is “light and lithe,” Tracy has performed with period ensembles including Apollo’s Fire, La Donna Musicale, Exsultemus, Musica Pacifica, Opera Lafayette, the Newberry Consort, Newton Baroque, Seven Times Salt, Three Notch’d Road, and the Washington Bach Consort. As an active resident of New York City, she has appeared at Lincoln Center with the American Classical Orchestra, Carnegie Hall with the Venice Baroque Orchestra and Tenet, and at the Guggenheim Museum and Met Cloisters with the Vox Vocal Ensemble. She has three times been featured as part of Early Music America’s Young Performer’s Festival with Case Western Reserve University – twice at the Boston Early Music Festival, where she was also awarded a spot with the Early Music America’s Select Festival Ensemble, and also at the Berkeley Early Music Festival.

Tracy is a co-founder of the medieval ensemble Alkemie, with whom she ponders the perspectives and sounds of centuries past, especially as they resonate with (and challenge!) our modern-day perceptions. Alkemie has developed and toured five programs along the eastern seaboard, and performed on early music concert series including the Capitol Early Music Series, Gotham Early Music Series, Beacon Hill Concert Series, Amherst Glebe Arts Response, and the War Memorial Arts Initiative. The ensemble has served as Artists-in-Residence at Avaloch and Fairmont State University, and will be featured this summer at the 2018 Indianapolis Early Music Festival. This summer Tracy also looks forward to returning to the Catskill Music Foundation music series with Labyrinth Baroque. As co-director of the ensemble, she will stage a 17th-centuty pastiche that juxtaposes florid virtuosity and ribald comedy.

Also known for her interpretations of new music, Tracy has sung with the Great Noise Ensemble, with whom she performed the world premiere of Armando Bayolo’s “Kaddish: Passio: Rothko” and the role of “Hadewijch” in Louis Andriessen’s Die Materie. She has sung cabaret with the Richmond Festival of Music, and toured with Weird Uncle, an experimental group that fuses medieval modes, jug band, and electronica.

Tracy received her M.M. in Early Music from the Longy School of Music and her D.M.A. in HistoricalPerformance Practice from Case Western Reserve University; she is faculty with the Amherst Early Music Festival, and has been a guest-artist/lecturer at Pennsylvania State University, Fairmont State University, Bucknell University, and guest artist at the Society for Seventeenth Century Music. She is a proud collaborator with the Charlottesville-based Early Music Access Project (EMAP).

In addition to her work as a singer, Tracy works with S’Cool Sounds, a cross-cultural music education program for children who lack access to arts education. She also choreographs and performs as a baroque dancer, with appearances at the Charlottesville Music Teachers Association, Pegasus Early Music, and El Fuego. When she is not performing, she is an enthusiastic forager and herbalist, and member of the New York Mycological Society.