Tamara Acosta

Visiting Lecturer

Overview

Tamara Acosta soprano, is the Interim Director of the Voice Program at Cornell and an Assistant Professor of Voice at Ithaca College. In addition, she is a co-founder of ONEcomposer, a non-profit organization shining a light on historically excluded musical excellence.

Her extensive performance career has taken Tamara to many of the great opera and concert stages of the world, including Lyric Opera Chicago, The Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Opera, Nashville Opera, Opera Delaware, Opera Pacific, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she appeared in the world premiere of Judith Weir’s The Vanishing Bridegroom. The New York Times has called Acosta’s soprano "solid…her singing clarion-toned and ardent." Recently, Tamara appeared as the soprano soloist in Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, first with the Symphony of the Mountains in Bristol, TN, followed by a performance with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra at Cornell University having previously performed the same piece with Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa in Xalapa, Mexico.

Recognizing a need for greater diversity in the classroom and on the concert stage, in 2019, Tamara co-founded ONEcomposer. By providing a platform for the study, performance, and discussion of a single, underrepresented composer’s life and legacy for the duration of an entire academic year, ONEcomposer promotes a more complete
understanding of musical histories. Recent projects include collaborations with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Cornell Concert Series. During AY 20-21, ONEcomposer hosted an eight-part speaker series with leading Black artists and scholars, five live-streamed performances, two lecture recitals, and two
masterclasses. Future partners include Opera Philadelphia, The Mann Center and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Tamara earned her Master of Music Degree from the New England Conservatory and her Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

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