Polly Cornelius

POLLY BUTLER CORNELIUS, soprano, is an international performer of opera, oratorio, chamber music, music theatre, and song recitals. She was the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences in 2018. She has created an niche for herself by performing American art songs written by living composers and has premiered several new works by Steve Heitzeg, Chris Miller, Jon Metzger, and Lori Laitman. By invitation, she has performed recitals of American music throughout Italy in venues including the Universita per Stranieri and San Dominica Auditorium in Umbria and at St. Mark's Church in Florence, Italy. She also performed recitals of songs by Libby Larsen at the Duffy Composers Institute, music by Paul Bowles with the Norfolk Chamber Consort, at the Arts and Humanities Conference in Honolulu, HI, and at the French Embassy and the Arts Club in Washington D.C. She has been a guest soloist with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and NC Symphony, with Zeitgeist in Minneapolis, MN, and in the Duke Chapel.  She has won awards and recognition from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (Artist Award), the Orpheus Vocal Artist Competition, the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, the Fort Worth Opera Company, and Shreveport Opera.  Leading roles have been performed with the MUNY in St. Louis, MO (Fiddler on the Roof), The Opera Company of North Carolina, Greensboro Opera Company,  the Piedmont Opera Theatre, Brevard Music Festival, and Opera Carolina. She has been a featured soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, American Institute of Musical Studies Orchestra in Graz, Austria, and with the Eastern Music Festival. Her solo recording, WILD SONGS, was released on the Innova label in April, 2012, and has received many accolades from Gramophone and other prestigious classical music journals, and been played on NPR, Canadian NPR, Hawaii NPR, and Minnesota, NPR.

A dedicated voice teacher, Polly is a Senior Lecturer of music and Coordinator of Vocal Studies at Elon University. She created a summer opera workshop course which she has taught several times since 2018 at the Accademia Europea di Firenze in Florence, Italy. Her students continue to perform leading roles on Broadway, off-Broadway, in regional theatres and opera houses, with National equity and non-equity Broadway touring companies, and have been featured on the hit-television series Glee and The Voice. Her pupils have won national, state, and regional vocal competitions, and are teaching music in public and private schools and universities throughout the United States. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is level-III certified in CCM Voice Training.