Soprano Willsonia Boyer performs both as an opera singer and as a concert artist.  In 2007 Ms. Boyer appeared in City Opera’s premiere of Margaret Garner, and in 2009 in Ellen Craft, by Sherry Boone and Sean Jeremy Palmer, at the off-Broadway Cell Theatre; other operaticappearances have included engagements with New York City Opera, Virginia Opera, Bregenz Festspiele, and New Jersey Concert Opera; performance venues include Europe and South America, as well as the United States.  She has appeared with the New Jersey Concert Opera in the title role of Tosca, and as Helmwige in Die Walkure in 2006.
   Presented by the Hans and Rosy Epstein Memorial Committee, Boyer made her New York recital debut at Merkin Concert Hall to critical acclaim.  Allan Kozinn of the New York Times wrote,” Ms. Boyer… brought a clear, pleasing timbre and superb interpretive instincts… with an alluring silkiness [and] rhythmic and coloristic flexibility…”  She sang again at Merkin Hall with the Hodie Ensemble, and recently presented a tribute to Dorothy Maynor, renowned African-American soprano, at St. Paul’s Church in Englewood, NJ.  Ms. Boyer is a regular soloist at the Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist, in New York City.
   Boyer, a native Virginian, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hollins University, and a Master’s degree from Virginia State University, where she studied with Dr. Richard Edwards.  She also studied at the Conservatoire de Neuilly, France, specializing in contemporary music under the tutelage of François Bernard Mâche, a pupil of Olivier Messiaen.  Ms. Boyer currently studies with former Metropolitan Opera baritone John Fiorito.