Demareus Cooper, mezzo-soprano

Demareus Cooper was a Metropolitan Opera audition winner and has been heard as soprano soloist with numerous American orchestras, including the Pittsburgh, Mid-Atlantic, Canton, and Wheeling Symphonies.  She will be presenting the first-ever Demareus N. Cooper Encouragement Award at the Metropolitan National Council auditions in December 2018.

Ms. Cooper is a busy recitalist, and appeared in Sam Hazo’s “Feather” for the International Poetry Forum. She was last seen on stage in October 2018 as the Narrator in Resonance Works | Pittsburgh’s performance of Leonard Bernstein’s On The Town In Concert.  A native of Ohio, Ms. Cooper graduated from Duquesne University; her first voice teacher was O’Labrice Beckom, a member of the National Negro Opera Company which was based in Pittsburgh between 1941 and 1960.

The remarkable power and rich timbres of Ms. Cooper’s voice lends passionate drama to Italian opera excerpts and sensitivity to art songs by African-American composers.