Biography
Canadian mezzo-soprano Rebecca Cuddy (she/her) is acknowledged as ‘the next generation who are going to do incredible things’ (The Whole Note, 2019). Rebecca is one of the recipients of the Dora Award for Outstanding Ensemble Work in Soundstreams’ Two Odysseys; Pimootewin and Gállábártnit and the inaugural winner of the Rose-Ellen Nichols Award in the Performing Arts.
This season Rebecca appeared with Soundstreams, New Brunswick Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as a member of The Indigidivas with Allegra Chamber Orchestra and Calgary Philharmonic, and premiered the opera Bulrusher with West Edge Opera in Oakland, California. She made her Manitoba Opera debut as Josette LaGrande in Li keur; Riel’s Heart of the North.
In 2023, Rebecca returned to Pacific Opera Victoria for Braunfels’ Die Vögel and made several concert appearances including with Soundstreams (premiere – Frehner’s L.E.X.), the New Orford String Quartet, the Toronto Consort, as well as a performance with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Jeremy Dutcher and Yo-Yo Ma in support of Toronto’s CAMH Centre.
In 2020-21, she appeared in multiple digital releases including her Canadian Opera Company debut in Voices of Mountains, singing the titular role in OperaQ’s Medusa’s Children, Soundstreams’ Garden of Vanished Pleasures, as well as Encounters: Indigenous Voices and Toronto Concert Orchestra’s Shatter.
Rebecca’s direction and theatre creation incorporates visual arts, languages and music to create interdisciplinary works. Rebecca was the inaugural artist and co-creator of the Canadian Opera Company’s Land Acknowledgement Commissioning Program and co-created where the water meets the land with Julie McIsaac. She created and premiered The Maydee Box at the Festival of Live Digital Art, 2022 and returns this work to FOLDA, 2024. She was a member of the Stratford Festival 2022 Langham Directors’ Workshop cohort during which she was Assistant Director under Alisa Palmer on Hamlet-911 by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and directed excerpts from The Flood by Leah Simone Bowen. For more information and downloadable CV visit The Talent House – Directors
Awards include: Rose-Ellen Nichols Award 2023, Vancouver Opera Kurt Sickert Award 2021; Berlin Opera Academy Joyce Mostert Memorial Scholarship2019; Finalist for L’Opèra de Montréal’s Atelier Lyrique Competition, 2019; Finalist for Sylva Gelber Award, 2016, 2017; Indspire’s Lynda Joyce Ganly Award and Fine Arts Award.
Rebecca is an advocate for Indigenous voices and storytelling in the performing arts. She is Canadian and of mixed heritage which includes Métis, Anishinaabe, Cree, Welsh, English, Scottish and Irish roots, raised as a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. She is ever grateful to the many Indigenous women, mentors, advocates and friends who work so diligently to pave a path for Indigenous voices on Turtle Island.
Rebecca is the 2022 graduate of the National Theatre of Canada Indigenous Artist Residency program. She has a Masters in Voice and Opera from The Royal Academy of Music, London U.K and a Bachelors in Music with Honours in Voice Performance from Western University. She is based in Toronto but travels everywhere and studies voice with her fabulous teacher Claudiu Stoia – they have been singing together since she was 15!