ERIN ARMSTRONG BIOGRAPHY B.Mus., M.Mus., B.Ed. 1270 Monmouth Windsor, ON * N8Y 3M1 [email protected] C: 647-444-4648

Mezzo-Soprano, Erin Armstrong is native to Windsor/Essex County and is well known for her ability to captivate an audience with her commanding stage presence and warm, rich voice as well for her constant community driven performances and creative initiatives. She is the recipient of the 2016 Windsor Mayor’s Award for Individual Artist, a 2017 nominee for the Ontario Premiere’s Award and the 2018 recipient of the Windsor Endowment for the Arts Elizabeth Havelock Grant for Performing Artist.

This season saw Erin bring Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro to life with the WSO as stage director followed by a new Canadian work at Western University, The Donnolly . She then performed Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier with Abridged Opera followed by a school tour she abridged and directed for Hansel and Gretel. After choral adjudicating Music Fest in Windsor and Sarnia she performed 3rd Lady in The Magic Flute followed by La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica with Opera Niagara. She is thrilled to be able to travel to Italy this summer to study with Dr. Maria Vetere, Aprile Millo and Richard Bonynge for Operavision Academy. Finally, this summer Erin will debut the role of Beppe in L’Amico Fritz for Opera at the Orchards series in Windsor/Essex.

Next season Erin will reprise her role as the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors followed by a month of collaboration with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra performing Italian arias, The Mozart and producing and singing the role of the Stepmother in Cendrillon by Massenet at Willistead Manor next March.

She is the founder and director of Music Moves Kids summer program and children’s choir, rapidly gaining recognition and recent recipients of the Performing Arts Infrastructure Grant through the Windsor Endowment for the Arts. Her choir has performed on Cogeco TV, PBS and with The . They have sung in seven including the Canadian premier of Czech national opera, Jakobin, by Dvorak. Other credits include the chorus of Cherubim in , the shepherds in Amahl and the Night Visitors and the children in Act 2 of La Boheme both with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Opera Niagara. In 2016 they performed the children’s opera Brundibar, both at the Windsor and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. They have been the chorus of Kuchenkinder for three productions of Hansel and Gretel and appeared as the orphans in Der Rosenkavalier. They are frequent guests of the WSO for the Holiday Pops concerts, and this May performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, singing John Rutter’s Mass of the Children, conducted by John Rutter.

Erin is also founder and director of Abridged Opera, a new initiative in Windsor designed to bridge the gap for audiences and the world of opera, making the art form more accessible. In 2017 Abridged Opera produced six operas, three concerts and a fringe festival entry. In addition to her transition from performer to behind the scenes, Erin is entering her fifth season as conductor of the award-winning Windsor Community Choir. She has also guest-conducted the Walkerville Centre for the Creative Arts vocal students at Musicfest where they placed Silver and were invited to Nationals.

Past credits include Mother and Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Old Woman in Candide, Amneris in , Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw, Margherite in Boito’s Mefistofeles, Heidi Schiller in Follies with Windsor’s first Confidential Musical Theatre Project, director for La Boheme with the WSO, soloist for WSO community concerts, Mrs. Andrews in Winsor Light Opera’s production of Mary Poppins, soprano soloist in Voices of Light by Richard Einhorn with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Mimi in La Boheme, Violetta in La Traviata, Angelica in Suor Angelica, High Priestess in Aida, La Contessa in La nozze di Figaro, Ortlinde in Die Walkure, Giulietta in I Capuletti ed I Montecchi, Beth in Little Women, Juliette in Romeo et Juliette, Alice Ford in Falstaff, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. Erin is an alumna of Calgary Opera’s Emerging Artist Program and a graduate of the Universities of Windsor and British Columbia. She holds her Bachelor and Masters of Music as well as a Bachelor of Education.