[On Site Opera Magic Flute]

I had a great time making my On Site Opera debut last week singing excerpts from The Magic Flute. I got to sing some First Lady and of course, Queen!

Thanks to my friend Sarah for getting this video and pics :)

[Queen of the Night with Mass Opera]

It is a true dream come true to make my Queen of the Night debut with Mass Opera in Boston, MA at the Modern Theater. Not to get too mushy about it, but I remember sitting on my bedroom floor as a little kid, “singing along” to recordings of the Queen’s arias, never even DREAMING that one day I would be on stage singing this iconic role. Huge thank you to Mass Opera and Dana Varga for giving me the chance to step into the Queen’s badass crown.

Here’s a fun clip from our Sitzprobe with Dr.Lisa Graham conducting.

[Music & Landscape]

It was such a blast returning to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to perform on a program featuring works that tie music with landscape. I was delighted to sing The Log House by Anton Heinrich as well as the prologue to Lully’s Alceste. I’ve never been on such an eclectic program, featuring composers from Stravinsky to Gluck, to Caroline Shaw. So…. when can we do it again??

“Soprano Maggie Finnegan soared through “The thundering Fall! The bubbling stream…Nature’s whispers…trilling arpeggios.” One of the poet’s other lines could describe her singing “With wild sweet play,” and I would offer with dazzlement musically and virtuosically.”
— David Patterson, The Boston Music Intelligencer

[Zoo Volunteering]

When I’m not singing opera, I love to spend some of my time as a Zoo Ambassador Volunteer at the Stone Zoo (Zoo New England). This week, during April Break, we educated over 500 kids about pollination… Did you know that the chocolate midge is one of the main pollinators of the cocoa plant? Next time you eat a piece of chocolate, spare a thought for the humble chocolate midge.

After a morning out and about, I have to agree with the river otters that it’s nap time :)

[BASS debut]

I had a fantastic time making my Brooklyn Art Song Society debut, singing Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Kaija Saariaho, Hannah Kendall and Benjamin Attahir. Huge thanks to Michael Brofman for inviting me to join the program, and to Alexa Stier for her gorgeous piano playing and collaboration on this challenging program.

“Her voice was bright, with a rapier-like intonation. The bookends of the set were songs reacting to nature while full of foreboding about the future, and the shining quality of her singing balanced the music on the point between stability and disaster. Kendall’s dream-like setting was a complex psychodrama of landscape, myth, and death. This was intense, literary music, and while the narrative may not have connected to all listeners, one admired Finnegan’s strength and control.”
— New York Classical Review
“Finnegan and Stier returned with Attahir’s De l’ineffable. This was a vocalise, and no less expressive than the previous works. Finnegan’s soprano sound was compelling, siren-like, and her technique and intonation were excellent. The brightness of her sound was a fine fit for this music, which is lovely but with unsettling undercurrents, moving from a flowing opening section to a much darker, stentorian, dramatic second section.
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— New York Classical Review