Soprano Margaret Taylor Woods is an artist based in Richmond, VA, establishing a diverse career of concert work, opera, teaching and church music. Margaret serves as adjunct music faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, teaching applied voice lessons and voice methods. She also runs a private voice studio and is quickly becoming one of the most sought after voice teachers and clinicians in the Richmond area.
As a soloist, Margaret is known for her musical and dramatic interpretations and is an active recitalist specializing in contemporary song. In the 2018/2019 season, Margaret has made appearances at the Gellman Room Series for the Richmond Public Library, performing a lecture recital featuring John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan, the Garden State Philharmonic singing the soprano solos for performances of Messiah and More, the Richmond Mozart Festival, the International Heitor Villa-Lobos Festival, the Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall performing a faculty recital featuring contemporary song and a performance as soprano soloist in Schubert’s Mass in G with Reveille United Methodist Church. This summer, Margaret will travel to Los Angeles to participate in SongFest as a Colburn Foundation Full Tuition Fellow.
Margaret’s singing resume includes a variety of operatic roles such as Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites), Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and other various roles performed through young artist and training programs such as Classic Lyric Arts: La Lingua Della Musica, Jeunesses Musicales Croatia, Crittenden Opera Workshop and the American Singers’ Opera Project. Past performances include a masterclass with Tom Cipullo for World Voice Day NYC NATS, masters recital in collaboration with esteemed pianist JJ Penna, Westminster Choir College’s Lindsey Christiansen Art Song Festival and as soprano soloist for the Virginia Masterworks Chorale.
In addition to her roles at VCU, Margaret serves as the elementary choral director for City Singers Youth Choirs and Music Assistant at First Presbyterian Church Richmond. She holds degrees from Lebanon Valley College in Music Education (B.S.) and Music (B.A.) and an M.M. in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College. This is Margaret’s first year serving on the faculty of BCI, she will be in Richmond.