Lauren Curnow Madigan is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School of Music, in which she holds Masters degrees in Opera Performance and Music, respectively. She is also a proud alum of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in which she earned a Bachelors degree in Theater Arts and English. Lauren currently serves on the voice faculty of the Muhlenberg College music department, the Lafayette College Music Department and is a current DMA candidate in vocal performance at the Mason Gross School of Music at Rutgers University.
Collectively, she has been teaching privately and in Colleges and voice programs for over 15 years. This includes a summer with the Curtis Institute of Music's Summerfest in which she taught private voice lessons and daily masterclasses, and a summer teaching lessons with The Lesson Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Lauren has also recently taken on the role of co-director/music director for Muhlenberg College's Opera Workshop for the past three spring seasons (2018-2020).
As an active performer under the name of Lauren Curnow, her past operatic engagements have included performing the roles of Elle in La Voix Humaine with the Wexford Festival Opera in Wexford, Ireland, Hansel in Hansel und Gretel with Opera Philadelphia, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Austin Lyric Opera. Ms. Curnow has sung eight mainstage roles with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, alongside such artists as Juan Diego Florez, Natalie Dessay, Vesselina Kasarova, Nathan Gunn, and Allesandro Corbelli, and was an apprentice with the Ryan Opera Center from 2003-2006. She has also participated as an apprentice with The Santa Fe Opera, The Opera Theater of St. Louis and The Wolftrap Opera.
Additional engagements included singing the role of Kate Pinkerton in the Saito-Kinen Festival's production of Madame Butterfly, which was performed in Tokyo, Yokohama and Kyoto, Japan, conducted by Pierre Vallet and overseen by Maestro Seiji Ozawa. Lauren made her role debut as Little Buttercup in Muhlenberg College Summer Theater's 2012 production of H.M.S. Pinafore. In the fall of 2011, she was heard as a soloist in a world premiere concert of Luxembourgian composer Victor Fenigstein's musical settings of the sonnets of William Shakespeare, which was a co-production of the departments of music and languages at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Ms. Curnow sang the role of Marcellina in The Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2010 production of Le Nozze di Figaro, which included such notable artists as Joyce DiDonato, Mariusz Kwiecien, Nicole Cabell and Danielle De Niese. In 2009, Lauren had the honor of travelling to Venice, Italy to perform the Folksongs of Luciano Berio in the Teatro Malibran of La Fenice, under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis. She also made her operatic debut at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, singing the role of the Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen, directed by Lawrence Pelly and conducted by Maestro Seiji Ozawa. Ms. Curnow was first heard as the Fox in the Pelly/Ozawa production in 2008 for the Saito-Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan. She debuted the role of the Fox in The Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2004 production, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis and directed by Chas Rader-Shieber.
Engagements for the 2013-2014 season included performing a song cycle entitled "She Sings," written by Dr. Douglas Ovens, composer, as part of the concert "Love Songs and Other Wonders" at Muhlenberg College, and a Boston area debut as soloist with the Concord Women's Chorus in a concert honoring women composers. June of 2013 took Ms. Curnow to Chicago, where she joined the members of The Second City and The Lyric Opera of Chicago in "The Second City Guide to the Opera." She then successfully debuted the role of Amneris in a concert version of Aida with The Berks Opera Company, alongside tenor Noah Stuart and Metropolitan Opera favorite, soprano Jennifer Check. Fall of 2013 brought an exciting west coast debut at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, where she sang the role of Telli in Arshin Mal Alan, or "The Cloth Peddler," a one hundred year old operetta from the country of Azerbaijan. In 2014, Lauren debuted the role of Azucena in Baltimore Concert Opera's production of Verdi's masterpiece, Il Trovatore, and sang in three operatic concerts with Opera Delaware as part of their "Spring Sings" presentation. Ms. Curnow then returned to the west coast to sing the role of Amneris in Opera San Luis Obispo's fully staged production of Aida under the baton of Maestro Brian Asher Alhadeff.
August of 2017 found Ms. Curnow debuting another singing role, that of Angelina in the Rossini opera, La Cenerentola, with the Berks Opera Company in Reading, Pennsylvania. March of 2016 included a faculty recital entitled "Tell Me The Truth About Love" and a role in a staged reading of a brand new musical, The Learned Ladies, which was debuted at The New School in New York City and featured Broadway and television stars Kecia Lewis and Jacob Ming-Trent. In the spring of 2015, Ms. Curnow had the honor of debuting the role of Anna Maurrant alongside her students in Kurt Weill's Street Scene with the Muhlenberg College Theater Department. She was also the mezzo soloist with the Hershey Symphony for a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
The summer of 2017 marked an exciting new adventure for Ms. Curnow, as she took on the role of music director/conductor for two summer musicals, "John & Jen" by Andrew Lippa (The Adams Family) and "Disaster!..A Musical," the recent Broadway hit. These productions were part of the inaugural summer music theater festival for Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, both directed by Bill Mutimer, college theater chair. Ms. Curnow continued her new role by co-directing the Muhlenberg College Music Department's 2018 Opera Workshop entitled, "She Sings: A Journey of the Woman's Voice in Opera," alongside colleagues Fiona Jackson, Soprano and Vincent Trovato, Pianist. Summer of 2018 proved to be an incredibly fun one for Ms. Curnow, as she portrays the role of Mrs. Potts in her very first Disney musical, Beauty and the Beast.
In 2019, Ms. Curnow was fortunate to have another role debut, that of Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, with the Berks Opera Company. She will sing Bach's "Coffee Cantata" with the company later this spring. New oratorio pieces throughout 2019-2020 will include Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with Soprano Cristina Nassif, the mezzo voice in excerpts from John Adams El Niño, excerpts from Mozart's Mass in C Minor and ReÅ„e Clausen's A New Creation. Lauren also performed a solo recital in the fall of 2019 with pianist Vincent Trovato, featuring the works of Argento, Debussy, Rossini, Brahms, Sondheim and Arlen. She was thrilled to perform a series of concerts throughout summer 2019 with the all men's choral group Summer Harmony and a concert of jazz and Broadway standards with the Allentown Band at Allentown Symphony Hall with Tenor, Eric Fennell. In spring of 2020, Lauren will again co-direct the Muhlenberg College Music Department's Opera Workshop, which will include works by Mozart, Monteverdi, Humperdinck, and Johann Strauss.