biography
Bio
Grammy nominee and two-time Juno nominated artist, Miriam Khalil has established herself as one of Canada’s most versatile and expressive performers. She is sought after for her interpretation of the works of Golijov, Puccini and Mozart, among others.
Recently, Khalil appeared as the soprano soloist in the world premiere of Karim Al-Zand’s Al Hakawati with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which she then reprised with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. Also on the concert stage, the 2024/2025 season saw reengagements with the Richard Eaton Singers (Fauré’s Requiem), Symphony Nova Scotia (Handel’s Messiah), and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Poulenc’s Gloria). This season, she looks forward to making her Manitoba Opera debut, and will sing in recital with City Opera Vancouver and in Toronto.
In 2024, Miriam returned to Pacific Opera Victoria for Margarita Xirgu in Golijov’s Ainadamar, Symphony Nova Scotia for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Edmonton Opera for her renowned interpretation of Golijov’s song cycle Ayre. Miriam joined Beth Morrison Projects for the world premiere of Kouyoumdjian’s Adoration for the 2024 PROTOTYPE Festival, where she received great acclaim for her portrayal of Sabine. She revisited the work last season with Los Angeles Opera, marking her debut with the company.
Miriam has recently made her debut with Vancouver Opera, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, and Vancouver’s Music in the Morning, for repertoire including Leila in Bizet’s Pearl Fishers, Handel’s Messiah, Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and more. Miriam also appeared in her hometown of Ottawa, Ontario for Mozart’s Don Giovanni, singing Donna Elvira with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the baton of Alexander Shelley.
In 2019, Miriam produced and was nominated for a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral, for her debut album Ayre: Live, a song cycle by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. With this song cycle, she made her South American Debut, and premiered Ayre in Buenos Aires at the Kirchner Cultural Centre. She has sung Ayre to critical acclaim in Banff and Edmonton Alberta, Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario, Victoria British Columbia, and opened the prestigious Rockport Music Festival in the USA, making this Song Cycle her signature piece. She also opened the 21c Music Festival at Koerner Hall with this very piece in 2020.
She has sung on numerous opera stages across North America and the U.K., including a stint at the renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera (GFO) in the United Kingdom. Notable roles include Mimì in La bohème (Canadian Opera Company, Minnesota Opera, Opera Hamilton, Calgary Opera, Edmonton Opera, and Against the Grain Theatre (AtG)); Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera Tampa and AtG/The Banff Centre/Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, National Arts Center Orchestra); Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande (AtG); the Governess in The Turn of the Screw (AtG); Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare (GFO); Almirena in Rinaldo (GFO); Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (Pacific Opera Victoria, Opera Lyra Ottawa, and AtG), Alcina (Fargo Moorhead Opera), Marzelline in Fidelio (Pacific Opera Victoria) and Mamah Cheney in Hagen’s Shining Brow (Urban Arias) among others.
Miriam made her much-anticipated major role debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Mimì in La bohème in 2019, a role she revisited with Edmonton Opera in 2022. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miriam pivoted masterfully to the digital stage and was involved in numerous innovative virtual projects.
With Pacific Opera Victoria, she participated in their ‘For All to Hear’ series, where she created, directed, produced and sang an online Arabic video recital, Songs My Parents Taught Me. She mentored their Apprentice Civic Engagement quartet (four young artists per year) to create, produce and direct their own virtual projects. She sang Elle in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine in a unique Poulenc/Cocteau digital project with VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert to critical acclaim and sang in recital with baritone Russel Braun and pianist Carolyn Maule, premiering a song cycle by Afarin Mansouri in the Mazzoleni Masters series at the Royal Conservatory, commissioned by Canadian Art Song Project. Miriam was also featured in Against the Grain Theatre’s digital production of Bound and picked up a directing credit on their film of Holst’s opera Sāvitri. Her recent seasons were also highlighted by Messiah/Complex, an internationally acclaimed, ATG/Toronto Symphony realization of Handel’s Messiah filmed against iconic Canadian landscapes sung in six languages by twelve soloists and 4 choirs. She was nominated for her second Juno with the recent release of the Messiah/Complex Album and won a Digital Excellence in Opera award with Opera America for ‘Best Noteworthy Project’. Miriam is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, the Steans Institute for Young Artists (Ravinia) and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme in England.
While in her last year of the COC Ensemble Studio, she advanced to the semi-finals of the Metropolitan Opera Council auditions and represented the Great Lakes Region on the Met stage, during which she was featured in the documentary film The Audition. She is a recipient of multiple awards and grants from the George London Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Scholarships.
She is a proud founding member of the Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning opera company Against the Grain Theatre (AtG). She also recently joined the Voice Faculty at the University of Alberta and is very excited to be working with the next generation of singing artists and creators.
read morePerformances
2025
Nov 29
City Opera Vancouver
Salam-Shalom, Echoes of Home
Recital with Jaclyn Grossman and Gordon Gerrard
2026
Feb 1
Grammy Ceremony
Nominated in the category of Best Opera Recording for Adoration by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Royce Vavreks
News & Features
news
Opera Canada
February 22, 2024
Artist Of The Week: 29 Qs For Miriam Khalil
This week’s Artist of the Week is Canadian-Lebanese soprano, Miriam Khalil. Miriam is in Victoria starring as Margarita Xirgu in Golijov’s Ainadamar with Pacific Opera Victoria.
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Times Colonist
February 19, 2024
Tangled relationship at heart of POV's production of Ainadamar
There is much to be digested — and discussed — when it comes to the topic of Ainadamar, the new Pacific Opera Victoria production. Buckle your seatbelts, because this is one heck of an unconventional ride.
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La Sena Musical
Winter 2023/2024
Joel Ivany & Miriam Khalil Just Getting Started
Against the Grain Theatre (AtG) is a pillar of the Canadian opera scene. The award-winning company has been pushing boundaries and challenging audiences to experience opera in exciting, new ways since its founding in 2010 by director, librettist, educator, and administrator Joel Ivany, and his partner, soprano Miriam Khalil.
read morepress
latest word
“Her lullabies are heartbreaking in the work, her violent outbursts frightening, her recitation of Arab texts engaging, her range of emotional compass overwhelming.”
The Globe & Mail
recording
audio
Ayre Live
Miriam Khalil
/ Soprano
Osvaldo Golijov
/ Composer
“It is as if she was born to sing it, or, even better, born for each other, she and Ayre.”
- Osvaldo Golijov, composer
Juno Nominated - Classical Album of the Year (small ensemble)
AYRE LIVE has received a JUNO nomination for Classical Album of the Year, Vocal or Choral. AtG Records’ debut album is a critically acclaimed fusion of lush Arabic, Hebrew, Sardinian, and Sephardic folk melodies and texts. Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Ayre is a brilliant example of 21st-century cultural counterpoint. This recording is the culmination of performances in Toronto for audiences at the breathtaking Ismaili Centre featuring Against the Grain Theatre founding member, soprano Miriam Khalil.
AYRE LIVE is now available for purchase and download on the following platforms. To learn more, check out the links below.
Messiah/Complex — Digital Album
Miriam Khalil
/ Soloist
George Frideric Handel
/ Composer
“A joyful screen adaptation of Handel's holiday staple”
- Globe and Mailr
Juno Nominated - Classical Album of the Year (large ensemble)
Against the Grain Theatre's interpretation of Handel's Messiah is a cross-Canada masterpiece: presented in seventy-eight minutes, performed in Arabic, Dene, English, French, Inuktitut, and Southern Tutchone, and accompanied by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. It features twelve soloists and four choirs representing every province and territory across the country.
Messiah/Complex has captured audiences from more than forty countries worldwide: receiving thousands of messages from international fans expressing gratitude for such a diverse and inspiring work, and sharing personal connections to Handel’s Messiah. The film has been praised by major international media outlets including, the New York Times, BBC Radio, and the Globe and Mail.
Handel With Care
The BOUND digital album is the soundtrack of the 2022 film. The creative score, composed by Kevin Lau with a libretto by Joel Ivany, features soprano Miriam Khalil, soprano Breanna Sinclairé, tenor Andrew Haji, and baritone Justin Welsh.
Lau takes inspiration from a medley of George Frideric Handel's enduring works, utilizing them to fashion an innovative sonic journey, anchored with assurance by the mighty sounds of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nathan Brock.
Adoration (Live)
Miriam Khalil
/ Sabine
Mary Kouyoumdjian
/ Composer
Royce Vavrek
/ Librettist
Alan Pierson
/ Conductor
Grammy Nominated Album: Best Opera Recording
Adoration is the world premiere live recording of an electroacoustic chamber opera by composer Mary Kouyoumdjian and librettist Royce Vavrek, adapted from Atom Egoyan’s film of the same name. Produced by Beth Morrison Projects, the work follows a high school student whose fictional story about a terrorist plot goes viral, unpacking how grief, racism, and media distortion collide to obscure the truth. Conducted by Alan Pierson, the cast features Miriam Khalil, Omar Najmi, David Adam Moore, and Grammy Award winner Karim Sulayman, alongside Naomi Louisa O’Connell and Marc Kudisch. They are joined by the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street under Thomas McCargar, the Silvana Quartet, and sound designer Daniel Neumann, with electronics by Kouyoumdjian.
ADORATION (LIVE) is now available for purchase and download on the following platforms. To learn more, check out the links below.
press
latest word
“...dark, dangerous and alluring, her fiery sound ablaze with passion. A skilled, versatile artist, Khalil’s voice entrances, a kaleidoscope of tumbled emotion.”
Opera Going Toronto
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Concert
Morgan Reid
Managing Director, Artist Manager
morgan@deanartists.com
416-969-7300 x 303
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Loren Graziano
Associate Artist Manager (Opera)
loren@deanartists.com
416-969-7300 x 301
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