About

In notable recent performances, Carly premiered the leading role of Jane Doe in Lyric Theatre Illinois’ production of Black Square by Ilya Demutsky (2024), performed as Zerlina in Act I of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the University of Illinois (2023), and charmed audiences as Baroness Elsa Schraeder in The Springfield Little Theatre’s production of The Sound of Music (2021). 

A sought-after collaborator for new and modern works, Carly has recently performed Steve Reich’s Drumming with the Illinois Percussion Ensemble (2024), John Philip Sousa’s “I’ve Made My Plans for the Summer” with the Illinois Campus Band (2023), and premiered Brian Hinkley’s seven-movement chamber work Total Inaction with the Illinois Modern Ensemble (2022).  In 2019 she premiered William Dicken’s song cycle Three Songs to texts by Thomas Hardy in Springfield, Missouri and in 2017 performed the dramatic speaking role of Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together in the Bremer St. Petri Dom’s Nacht der Klänge (Night of Sounds) in Bremen, Germany.

With a clear and elegant tone, Carly’s voice is well-suited to early music. She sings regularly with the Baroque chamber ensemble, Concerto Urbano, and she has been featured as a concert soloist for Bach’s Nach dir Herr, verlanget mich BWV 150, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Durante’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, and Fauré’s Requiem.  In 2018, she performed the solo in Ola Gjeilo’s “Ave Generosa” in concert with the composer at the GIA Fall Institute in Chicago.

Carly’s versatility makes her an asset to professional choral ensembles, as well. While studying at Lee University in Cleveland, TN she was a member of the Tennessee Chamber Chorus, a fully professional ensemble with semi-annual concert cycles.  After completing her B.M. in Vocal Performance and Music Education, she worked one year as an Au Pair in Germany where she sang the great oratorios of Bach with the Bremen Domchor. During her master’s she toured and performed widely with the Missouri State Chorale and in 2018, she participated in the inaugural year of the Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute in Aspen, Colorado.

In 2019, Carly was honored as one of only five American singers selected for the World Youth Choir (WYC), hosted that year in France and Portugal.  In this project, she performed featured solos in Josep Vila i Casañas’ “Gloria” from Missa Sanctus-Benedictus, and Eric Whitacre’s “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine.” She was subsequently selected for the 2020 Beethoven Jahr and 2021 ACDA Conference projects, but both events were cancelled due to Covid-19. After a four-year hiatus, the WYC resurrected with a 2023 Alumni Session touring Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary, to which Carly was invited. This summer, Carly is honored to serve as the soprano section leader for the 2024 Session, performing Beethoven’s Ninth with the German Bundesjugendorchester and 93 singers from 45 countries in eleven concerts around Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Outside of her university studies, Carly’s operatic training includes singing in the Ozarks Lyric Opera Chorus in the 2021-2022 season for performances of Puccini’s Turandot, Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo, and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci starring Michael Spyres. She was a Young Artist with the same company in 2018-2019 which included pop-up performances and masterclasses with Michael Spyres, and in the summer of 2015 she participated in the Harrower Opera Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia. Roles to date, besides those mentioned above, include Marianna in Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino, and Mercury in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld with the Missouri State Opera Theatre, and Alexis in Offenbach’s The Island of Tulipatan, The Fire in Ravel’s The Child and the Spells, and Casilda in The Gondoliers with the Lee University Opera Theatre.  In January 2019, she and her colleagues were awarded second place in the graduate division of the National Opera Association’s Scene Competition in Salt Lake City, Utah (photo middle-right).

Carly is pursuing a DMA in Vocal Performance and Literature with a cognate in Voice Health and Science under Yvonne Gonzalez Redman at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She holds a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Missouri State University (2019) where she studied under Dr. Carol Chapman, and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and Music Education Vocal/General K-12 (2016) from Lee University, where she studied under the late Virginia Horton.  Carly has taught Applied Voice, Class Voice, and Diction for Singers as an adjunct instructor at Missouri State University, Evangel University (2019-2022), and College of the Ozarks (2020-2022) and currently teaches applied voice as a Voice Area Teaching Assistant at the University of Illinois.