Ellen Leslie

Four-time winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in the San Francisco District, soprano Ellen Leslie enjoys an international career as a versatile opera performer, concert soloist, and recitalist. 

Recent Bay Area highlights include a solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony in Gjeilo’s Tundra; Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) with the Santa Rosa Symphony;  Ida (Die Fledermaus) with Opera San Jose; Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Brahms Requiem, and Elijah with the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra; Carmina Burana with the Vallejo Choral Society; creating the role of Jane Bennet in the world premiere of Kirke Mechem’s Pride & Prejudice; Adina (Elixir of Love) and Valencienne (The Merry Widow) with Pocket Opera; a headlining concert of arias with the Merced Symphony; and Josephine (HMS Pinafore) and the title role in Patience with Lamplighters Music Theatre. She also stepped in to cover Andriana Chuchman’s Adina in L’Elisir d’amore at Festival Napa Valley and reprised the role with the San Francisco Opera Guild.

Ms. Leslie made her German debut as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) in Schloss Merode, and as Rosane (Vivaldi La verità in cimento) in Leipzig. She has also been seen on the concert stage with orchestras in Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, and France, and on the opera stage in New York and Colorado in leading roles in Hansel & Gretel, The Consul, the American premiere of Rocking Horse Winner and the world premiere of Vinkensport, or the Finch Opera. She is featured in conductor Ming Luke’s 2020 TED-Ed video “The Physics of Opera Singing.”

An accomplished recitalist, Ms. Leslie is well-versed in French, English, and German repertoire, and enjoys collaborating on new works. She premieres Byron Adams’s Stabat Mater, written especially for her, in Spring 2024, and a recital of American and English art song (featuring works by Ian Venables) with pianist Eric Choate in Malvern, England, in Summer 2024. Known for her clarion timbre and effortless straight tone ability, Ms. Leslie is also sought-after as a chamber musician in groups including Cappella SF and the San Francisco Symphony. 

Ms. Leslie grew up on an Irwin 37 sailboat in the San Francisco Bay and spent her childhood circumnavigating with her family. She earned concurrent undergraduate degrees from the University of Denver--a BM in Voice Performance and a BA in French, both summa cum laude. In recognition of her academic and musical accomplishments, she was also inducted into both Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Kappa Lambda. She earned her MM at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2016, Ms. Leslie completed her postgraduate studies on full scholarship at the Hochschule für Musik "Feliz Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig, in conjunction with SFCM.  She has also lived and studied in Strasbourg, France.

Ms. Leslie is based in San Francisco, where she lives with her husband, composer/conductor Eric Choate, and studies with Sheri Greenawald.

Current as of April 2024