Johanna Kvam is a collaborative pianist from Rochester, MN. Most recently, she served as Staff Pianist and Music Coordinator at Kentucky Opera in Louisville, KY, and as a repetiteur for mainstage opera programming, in addition to being a staff accompanist at the University of Louisville. She was previously a Sandford Studio Artist at Kentucky Opera, playing for productions of Le nozze di Figaro, Carmen, and Glory Denied. She was also previously a Herndon Foundation Emerging Artist Apprentice Coach with Virginia Opera, playing for productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lucia di Lammermoor, Street Scene, Don Giovanni, and L’elisir d’amore, as well as serving as a pianist for outreach productions and the Variations concert series.
Previous highlights include an art song recital tour with mezzo-soprano Katherine Calcamuggio Donner for the Piatigorsky Foundation in April 2023, the U.S. premiere of the Hebrew translation of Grigory Frid’s The Diary of Anne Frank for Opera in Williamsburg, of which the Virginia Gazette wrote that she “couldn’t have been a more powerful companion to the words and music,” and an artistic residency at Macalester College in St. Paul, which culminated in Seen/Unseen, an art song recital that included the world premiere of Victoria Malawey’s song cycle Chansons Innocentes. Johanna also performed for the U.S. premiere of Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park with Peabody Opera Theatre, of which the Baltimore Sun reported she was a “major star of the production” and played “in scintillant fashion.”
She has served as an orchestral keyboardist for multiple operas, including piano in Jack Perla’s An American Dream (Kentucky Opera), piano in Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied (Opera Fayetteville), piano/celesta in Street Scene (Virginia Opera), celesta/harpsichord in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Virginia Opera), and piano in Turn of the Screw (DC Public Opera).
A two-time recipient of the Clara Ascherfeld Award in Accompanying, Johanna holds an undergraduate degree in piano performance from Macalester College, and an MM in Vocal Accompanying from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins.
Upcoming projects include a recital of American art song with baritone Steve Miller in Louisville KY, followed by her joining the National Opera Studio as a Young Artist in September 2023.
Updated July 2023. This biography should not be reproduced without asking permission from the National Opera Studio.