Suzanne Ramo
Ramo joins the School of Music faculty in Fall 2018 as an assistant professor of voice. Lauded by the San Francisco Chronicle for an ease with coloratura that one hears “blazing forth brightly” as well as her “lyrical phrasing sweetly rendered,” soprano Suzanne Ramo has appeared several times in Amarillo, most recently during the 2017-2018 season with Chamber Music Amarillo in Mahler’s 4th Symphony, and with Amarillo Opera as Violetta in La traviata, a performance that was broadcast on Panhandle PBS. A frequent performer in the state of Texas, she has brought her crystalline soprano to Orff’s Carmina Burana with Ballet Austin, and returned to the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra for the title role of Donizetti’s Rita. As Constance in Les dialogues des Carmélites with Austin Opera, she earned a nomination for an Austin Critics’ Table Award as best singer of the 2008-09 season. Declared “always a highlight of any Austin Opera production she joins” by the Austin American-Statesman, she has previously joined the company as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, Stella in Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. She received a second nomination from the Austin Critics’ Table Awards for her performance in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Texas Choral Consort in the 2013-14 season. She also added the soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 to her repertoire with a performance with the Laredo Phil.
Other roles include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Berkshire Opera; Musetta in La bohème; Violetta in La traviata, Micaela in Carmen, Madame Mao in Adams’ Nixon in China; and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. With the San Francisco Opera, she sang the title role of The Ballad of Baby Doe, Der Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte, Woglinde in both Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung, Der Waldvogel in Siegfried in addition to joining the company for its productions of Rigoletto, Falstaff, Der Rosenkavalier, and Semele. Also under the auspices of San Francisco Opera, she sang title role of La Calisto, Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring, and Elvira in L’italiana in Algeri in California as well as Violetta in La traviata on tour with the Western Opera Theater.
A prolific interpreter of oratorio repertoire, she has joined the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under the baton of Nicholas McGegan for Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge, Modesto Symphony for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Stanford University as guest soloist for Mozart’s Mass in C minor, another Carmina Burana with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Panamá at the Alfredo Saint-Malo Music Festival, as well as the Strata Trio for Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen at Concerts at the Point in Massachusetts. Especially sought after for concert performances in her home of Texas, she has sung acclaimed performances of Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder and Dubois’ Seven Last Words of Christ with the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah and Poulenc’s Gloria with the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Victoria Symphony, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Brazos Valley Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem with Musica Ecclesiae in Austin, and University of Texas Wind Ensemble, in addition to concerts of Broadway favorites with the San Antonio Symphony and Victoria Symphony. With the Southeastern Festival of Song, she has presented recital programs that included “Dio cor mio” from Handel’s Alcina along with the works of Berlioz, Poulenc, Heggie, Musto, and Porter.
In addition to performing, Dr. Ramo has been an Attaway Scholar at the Centenary College of Lousiana, where she presented her research on the Father-Daughter Relationship in Verdi’s Luisa Miller, Rigoletto and La traviata.
Ramo holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Texas at Austin. Her previous teaching was as Assistant Professor of Voice and Director of Opera Workshop at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.