Biography

Rachel C. Singh is a soprano, poet, and composer currently based out of Magdeburg, Germany. This 2025/26 season, she can be seen as a member of the Theater Magdeburg Opera Chorus, in productions such as La Traviata, Clivia (Nico Dostal), Leben mit einem Idioten (Alfred Schnittke), and Manon. Singh is also a frequent concert performer, and most recently sang the soprano solo in Dvořak's "Mass in D."

Singh is a soprano perhaps best characterized by her range: not only in reference to her "shimmering high notes" (CITY Magazine) , but also in her versatility as a performer. Singh has sung with medieval and Renaissance groups (Rochester's Scivias and Schola Cantorum), performed the contemporary role of Nora's Mind (Anthony Davis, Lear on the 2nd Floor) complete with "guttural growls," and regularly sings the gamut of what lies between.

As a composer, Singh couples comforting melodies with colorful harmonies, making her pieces pleasing to the ear, yet undeniably twenty-first century. She seeks out underrepresented poets in any language, specifically female poets to create art song from a woman's perspective, not merely songs narrated by a female character of a man's invention. When there is a story not told by "classic literature," she will write the poem herself, intentionally bringing queer narratives into the classical canon.

Singh published her first volume of poetry, Poems With a Bite Taken Out of Them, in January of 2025. As a writer, she has worked for the Washington Opera Society in Washington, D.C., and was most recently commissioned by the Goodman Theatre in Chicago as part of their tandem project with The Poetry Foundation, Play on Words.

Singh graduated summa cum laude with her B.M. in Classical Voice Performance coupled with minors in Spanish and Italian from DePaul University in 2020, and received her M.M. in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music in 2023.

A note from the composer:

I am a lesbian of mixed race, specifically of South Asian descent. My identity has altered my life in immeasurable ways, but it hardly exists in the classical music world. My music is my way of writing myself into existence. If you want to see an underrepresented part of yourself exist in music, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will happily do what I can to share your voice.