“Brimming with effortless lyricism” (Musical America), Anna Ward is a passionate interpreter of a wide variety of vocal repertoire. Ward has performed with ArtsEmerson, the Mark Morris Dance Company, Lorelei Ensemble, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Yale Choral Artists, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Seraphim Singers, and the Boston Chamber Symphony. Ward has performed at Carnegie Hall with the Yale Choral Artists (2012) and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (2010). In 2018, she was a cast member in the Ireland tour of Gare St. Lazare’s Samuel Beckett pastiche, Here All Night.
Ward is an avid proponent of new music. She collaborated with Mark Warhol in his opera JEANNE, recording and performing the title role as he composed it. She was featured in the premiere of Richard J. Clark’s “Woman of No Distinction” with Jennifer Lester’s Seraphim Singers and will premiere Clark’s Te Deum in Paris during 2022. In 2011, Ward headlined Equilibrium Ensemble’s opening program in an “electrifying” delivery of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Masaki Hasebe’s Mi-da-re-ga-mi No. 2. Ward’s performance “negotiated Schönberg’s often treacherous sprechstimme with a warm tone and a flexible inflection that revealed Pierrot’s inner psychology and Schönberg’s vivid drama” (the Boston Musical Intelligencer). Ward has also had the pleasure of performing many beloved 20th-Century works for soprano, such as Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Boston Chamber Symphony), Gorecki’s Good Night (Equilibrium Ensemble), John Harbison’s Mirabai Songs, and Cathy Berberian’s Stripsody (Juventas New Music Ensemble).
Ward is the soprano soloist on MIT Women’s Chorale’s premiere recording of the second mass of Charles-René, available on iTunes. She also recorded many tracks for the video game Code Vein, released in 2019. In 2012, Ward performed with Yale Choral Artists and William Christie at Carnegie Hall. She has also lent her voice to live performances of Vivaldi and Bach with the Mark Morris Dance Company.
Ward sings regularly with a number of professional choral ensembles. She was an original member of Yale Choral Artists and a guest soprano with Lorelei Ensemble, Copley Singers, Trinity Church in Copley Square, Boston University’s Marsh Chapel Choir, and King’s Chapel Choir. Ward has served as cantor for the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, during which she was featured regularly on CatholicTV.
Ward brings her luminous stage presence to the operatic arena, as well, where she has performed roles with Raylynmor Opera, Amadeus Opernensemble, and Soir des Femmes. Ward was a 2012 Advanced Artist at OperaWorks in Los Angeles and a 2007 young artist at the Austrian-American Mozart Academy in Salzburg. Ward has performed the roles of Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Lisette (La Rondine), Nella (Gianni Schicchi), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro), 2nd Lady (The Magic Flute), Mabel (Pirates of Penzance), Yum-Yum (The Mikado), Phyllis (Iolanthe), and Despina (John Davies’ The Three Little Pigs), in addition to originating six roles in their respective world premières.
On the recital stage, Ward is a dynamic interpreter of song and oratorio repertoire. She has enjoyed performing the soprano roles in Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Handel’s Let God Arise and Messiah, Haydn’s Nelsonmesse, and Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore and Grand Mass in C Minor. In 2014, Ward created a concert series called Wolf Reconstructed, reimagining Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with a modern story line. She also enjoys creating faculty recital programs at St. John’s University and Middlesex Community College. Recent topics have included climate change, LGBTQ issues in music, celebrating immigrants through music, and Songs and Experiences of Black America.
A native of Bismarck, North Dakota, Ward received her Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, from Western Michigan University as the Robert and Carol Payne-Smith Medallion Scholar. From there, she went on to complete a Master of Music in Voice Performance at the Boston Conservatory. Ward has taught voice at Wellesley College, Roxbury Community College, Fall River Community College, and is currently on the music faculty at College of Saint Benedict / St. John’s University and Middlesex Community College. She currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband and two children.