American mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby is in demand by opera companies and orchestras throughout the world.  Her unique vocal timbre and insightful musicianship allow her to pursue a repertoire extending from the operas of Monteverdi and Handel to recent works by John Adams.  She regularly performs the major heroines of nineteenth-century French, Italian and German opera and the great symphonic works.

Nancy Maultsby’s operatic career has included a wide range of roles in some of the world’s most prestigious houses.  In the United States, she has performed principle roles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Das Rheingold, Siegfried, Götterdammerung, La Gioconda, Pique Dame), The San Francisco Opera (Carmen), The Seattle Opera (Das Rheingold, Siegfried, Götterdammerung, Werther, Carmen, Die Fledermaus), Washington National Opera (Falstaff, Siegfried), Boston Lyric Opera (Rusalka, Un Ballo in Maschera), Florida Grand Opera (Giulio Cesare), Santa Fe Opera (Carmen, Falstaff, Tea: A Mirror of Soul), Minnesota Opera (Aida), Opera Colorado (Un Ballo in Maschera, Giulio Cesare), Opera Company of Philadelphia (Tea: A Mirror of Soul), Opera Theatre of St. Louis (The Death of Klinghoffer), Pittsburgh Opera (Carmen), Palm Beach Opera (Aida), Michigan Opera Theater (Aida) and New Orleans Opera (Verdi Requiem).  Internationally, her extensive career has taken her to the Royal Opera, Covent Garden (Die Ägyptische Helena), Teatro dell’Opera in Rome (Oedipus Rex), Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (Carmen), Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa (Norma), Opéra de Montréal (Bluebeard’s Castle), Staatsoper Stuttgart (Die Walküre), Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Italy (Oedipus Rex), Semperoper Dresden (Oedipus Rex), De Nederlandse Opera (Andrea Chénier) and the Greek National Opera in Athens (Aida, Oedipus Rex, L’incoronazione di Poppea). 

In the 2011/2012 season, Nancy Maultsby will make a role debut as Azucena in Verdi’s Il Trovatore at Opera Colorado, directed by Tara Faircloth and conducted by Oleg Caetani.  Orchestral highlights include a return to the Atlanta Symphony to open the 2011/2012 season with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 conducted by Robert Spano and later the Seattle Symphony for Mozart’s Requiem, conducted by Gerard Schwarz. 

Ms. Maultsby’s orchestral repertoire extends from the Baroque to the most important works of the twentieth century.  Throughout her career, Nancy Maultsby has enjoyed frequent engagements with many leading conductors.  Her collaborations include performances under Zubin Mehta, Alan Gilbert, Gerard Schwarz, Pierre Boulez, Christoph von Dohnányi, Kurt Masur, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Yuri Temirkanov, Sir Andrew Davis, Lorin Maazel, Sir Colin Davis, Riccardo Chailly, Patrick Summers, David Zinman, Peter Oundjian, Jeffrey Kahane, David Robertson, Stephen Lord, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bruno Bartoletti, Robert Abbado, Patrick Summers, Michael Christie, Robert Spano, Christian Thielemann, Sebastian Lang Lessing, Franz Welser-Möst, Neeme Järvi, Tan Dun, the late Hans Vonk, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin and the late Robert Shaw.  Her regular collaborations with America’s leading orchestras include concerts with the New York Philharmonic (Beethoven No. 9, Béatrice et Bénédict, Messiah), the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra (Glagolitic Mass, Verdi Requiem), the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Glagolitic Mass), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Beethoven No. 9), the San Francisco Symphony (Alexander Nevsky), the Baltimore Symphony (Alexander Nevsky), the Toronto Symphony (Glagolitic Mass), the Seattle Symphony (Beethoven No. 9) the Atlanta Symphony (“Jeremiah” Symphony, El Niño), the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (The Rake’s Progress) the St. Louis Symphony (Rossini Stabat Mater, Alexander Nevsky), the Colorado Symphony (Verdi Requiem) the Detroit Symphony (Verdi Requiem), Houston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony (Bach Mass in b minor), the Rochester Philharmonic (Aida, Messiah), the Florida Orchestra (Beethoven No. 9), IRIS Orchestra (Elgar’s Sea Pictures) and the Brooklyn Philharmonic (The Death of Klinghoffer).  She has sung at every major U.S. Festival including Ravinia (El Niño), Tanglewood, Saratoga, Aspen, Grant Park (Alexander Nevsky) and the Cincinnati May Festival.

The particularly rich quality of Ms. Maultsby’s vocal timbre is a natural fit with the music of Gustav Mahler.  She has sung his Symphony No. 2 with the Cleveland Orchestra (Dohnányi), the Minnesota Orchestra (de Waart), Baltimore Symphony (Temirkanov) the National Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, Atlanta Symphony (Spano), on tour with the Israel Philharmonic (Mehta), the Aspen Music Festival, the Orchestre National de France (Conlon), the Australian Broadcasting Company (de Waart), the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Utah Symphony, the Nashville Symphony (Slatkin) and the New Jersey Symphony.  Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 has taken her to the orchestras of Cleveland (Welser-Möst) Minnesota, St. Louis (including Carnegie Hall), Detroit (Järvi), Baltimore (Temirkanov), Atlanta (Levi), Baltimore (Zinman), New Jersey (Macal), Hong Kong (de Waart), and West Australia.  She has also performed the Symphony No. 8 (New York Phil (Maazel), Los Angeles Phil (Salonen), Seattle (Schwarz), Minnesota, Cincinnati May Festival, Amsterdam), Das Lied von der Erde (Atlanta, Baltimore, Aspen Festival, Brooklyn, Syracuse, Sydney), Kindertotenlieder (Baltimore Symphony with Temirkanov, Orchestra della Toscana with Bartoletti), Das Knaben Wunderhorn (Rochester) and Das Klagende Lied (American Symphony Orchestra).

In addition to a recording of Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Antonio Pappano on Forlane, Odyseus and Telarc's highly acclaimed recording of Mozart's Requiem - the premiere recording on period instruments with the Boston Baroque - Ms. Maultsby can be heard on Telarc's recording of Dido and Aeneas, also with the Boston Baroque.  She is featured on box sets honoring Christoph von Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra (Mahler 2^nd) and Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic (Debussy’s St. Sebastian).  Her recent recordings include the Lamentation from Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”) with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony for Telarc, Richard Yardumian’s Symphony No. 2 with the Singapore Symphony on BIS, and Wagner opera excerpts on Naxos.

Nancy Maultsby is a graduate of Westminster Choir College, where she studied with Lindsey Christiansen, and was a graduate student at Indiana University School of Music, where she studied with Margaret Harshaw.  She is an alumna of the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Center for American Artists.  Among numerous other awards, she is the winner of the Marian Anderson Award and the Martin E. Segal Award.