Courtenay Budd’s soprano, “a voice for connoisseurs,“ has been heard with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the National Symphony, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and repeatedly at Carnegie Hall, Spoleto USA, and the Grand Teton and Bard Music Festivals. Ms. Budd won First Prize in the 2001 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, leading to acclaimed recital debuts at Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center, Boston’s Gardner Museum, and New York’s 92^nd Street Y, prompting Darrell Rosenbluth of New York Concert Review to applaud: “Ms. Budd effortlessly took New York; the East Coast is secured.”

Critic Wes Blomster calls Courtenay Budd “one of the fastest-rising stars on the American opera stage.” A Metropolitan Opera National Finalist, her operatic performances include Ilia in Idomeneo at Alice Tully Hall, Baby Doe, Zerbinetta, Zerlina, Pamina, Amy in Little Women, Laurie in the Tender Land, and Marie in The Daughter of the Regiment, with such companies as Central City Opera, Opera Omaha, Atlanta Opera, and the Colorado and Charleston Symphonies.

Courtenay has enjoyed recent performances with Pulitzer-winning composer and pianist David Del Tredici at Brooklyn’s Bargemusic, appearing also in concerts of his music at the Guggenheim Museum and New York’s 92^nd Street Y. In March of 2012, the pair will celebrate his 75^th birthday in New York with an all-Del Tredici recital at Symphony Space. Additional upcoming performances include a recital at Vassar College with pianist Miriam Charney and mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock, Handel’s Messiah with the Danbury Music Centre, chamber music at the Villar Center in Vail, CO, and Carmina Burana with the Fresno Philharmonic. Highlights of her 2011 season included opera concerts with the Symphony of the Americas, recitals with the Artists Series of Sarasota, Young Concert Artists’ 50^th Anniversary Concert in NYC, and Marie in La fille du regiment with Sugar Creek Festival.

Ms. Budd’s chamber music performances range from Bach and Handel to Schönberg’s String Quartet #2, I Hear an Army by David Del Tredici, recitals nationwide, and Rachmaninoff songs with pianist Ruth Laredo at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has collaborated with symphony orchestras across the United States in the Requiems of Brahms and Mozart, Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, Strauss’ Brentanolieder, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, Handel’s Samson, Beethoven’s Symphony #9, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bach’s Cantatas 201 and 199, and Haydn’s Creation.

Courtenay Budd is a favorite of audiences and critics at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., where she has appeared in orchestral concerts and has been a regular on the Dock Street Chamber Music Series, appearing alongside her mentor and frequent collaborator, pianist Charles Wadsworth. The 2002 Festival featured Ms. Budd in the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae, performed to critical acclaim with Todd Palmer and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

Budd’s own CD Sleep is Behind the Door was named “Lullaby Album of the year” by CDBaby.com, and has raised thousands in aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and Pakistan. The recording was the generous collaboration of numerous distinguished artists including soprano Sylvia McNair and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Additionally, Budd appears on the VMS recording Korngold’s Hollywood Songbook with baritone Steven Kimbrough and pianist Dalton Baldwin.

A Georgia native, Courtenay Budd was honored with the 2004 Distinguished Young Alumnus Award from and the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. She also holds a masters degree from Westminster Choir College and currently resides in New York’s Hudson Valley.