CFSA is pleased to announce that Maggie Reneé has been selected as the 2023 Igor Gorin Memorial Award recipient!
The Igor Gorin Memorial Award was established in 1987 by Mary Gorin as a fitting way to honor the memory of her husband, Igor Gorin, a world-renowned opera singer. Since 1993, the Igor Gorin Memorial Award has awarded $358,000 to support young vocalists at the start of their operatic careers.
This unrestricted award is given out once a year to help gifted vocalists poised to begin successful careers with expenses associated with accompanists, coaches, and auditioning as they transition from school into professional careers.
Maggie Reneé, a mezzo-soprano from Los Angeles, California, is a Metropolitan Opera Competition Grand Finalist Award Winner, Opera Index Award Winner, Sullivan Foundation Finalist, and an Honors BM and MM graduate of The Juilliard School, where she is pursuing her ADOS.
This season at Des Moines Opera, she will cover Carmen and sing Nicolette in The Love for Three Oranges. Last season, at Juilliard Opera she sang Irene in Atalanta and at Merola Opera she sang Zweiter Knabe and Baba the Turk at Juilliard Opera. Previously at Santa Fe Opera, Maggie Reneé covered Olga and Due Donne and sang King Egeo and Goffredo in Rinaldo at Juilliard. She sang Carmen in La Tragédie de Carmen with City Lyric Opera, toured Europe with Juilliard’s Dido and Aeneas, and made her European debut as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro in Germany. Maggie Reneé writes her own music, has a black belt in Karate, and entertains over 230K+ of her subscribers on her YouTube channels daily.
“I am so grateful for this award for several reasons. First, it is amazing to get recognition as a young artist. Unfortunately, in the opera world, being young is detrimental to success. Unlike any other music genre, like pop, jazz, rap, and rock, musicians my age are already recognized and are allowed and promoted to succeed. That’s why this award is so important for hard-working young artists like me.
Secondly, I am so grateful for this financial award because it is so difficult to find real support like this to be able to continue to take lessons, have coaching, travel to auditions, and be able to participate in the highest level of competitions, events, and performances in the world. I have won several competitions before, and though I appreciate any size awards because every little bit helps, this generous award will go a long way in helping me overcome some of the financial struggles associated with being a young artist by allowing me to go out and audition and compete for more opportunities that I wouldn’t be able to do without this financial backing.
Finally, I feel so thankful to be associated with Igor Gorin’s legacy as I love singing in Russian, and it is this romantic repertoire of Russian romances that first attracted me to classical singing. I love Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Glinka because their music is magical and warms my heart. I am getting ready to graduate from Juilliard’s ADOS degree program within the next year and will be officially beginning my performing career outside of school, with performances already scheduled around Europe and the United States. This award will make it possible for me to bring beautiful music to more audiences, to bring them joy and to help heal their sorrow, and to focus on my training so that I can become one of the best singers in the world as I aspire to be.
Thank you so much for believing in me, recognizing my hard work, and helping me stay on this very difficult professional path. I appreciate this award more than I could ever express in words!”
Visit Maggie’s website to learn more and listen to her performances