J’Nai Bridges

Mezzo-soprano

Biography

Two time Grammy® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano, J’Nai Bridges known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), and “calmly commanding stage presence” (The New Yorker) has been “marked out at and early stage as a singer headed for top flight” (Financial Times), gracing the world’s top opera and concert stages.

In Ms. Bridges' upcoming 2024-25 season, she will make her role debut as Maddalena in Verdi's Rigoletto at The Metropolitan Opera. Her concert engagements include performing alongside the National Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Tacoma, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She will perform a solo recital as an artist in residence at the Kaufman Music Center, and will feature as the mezzo-soprano soloist alongside the Dessoff Choirs in Verdi's Requiem for a concert at Trinity Church. Returning to Seattle Opera, she will debut the role of Didon in performances of Les Troyens, and in Spring 2025, will play the title role in Carmen at the Wiener Staatsoper,. Bridges made her Lincoln Center debut performing Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs, and “with a voice both voluptuous and statuesque, sang with depth and serenity” (The New York Times) had a huge success performing the role of Mary in John Adams' El Niño at the Metropolitan Opera.

Ms. Bridges has emerged as a leading figure in classical music’s shift toward conversations of inclusion and racial justice in the performing arts. In 2022 she was announced as one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders, and appeared with The National Philharmonic in the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s A Knee on the Neck that same year. Bridges led a highly successful panel on race and inequality in opera with the Los Angeles Opera that drew international acclaim for being a “conversation of striking scope and candor” (The New York Times). Ms. Bridges was also featured in the Converse shoe brand’s All Stars Campaign for its Breaking Down Barriers collection, and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel for two episodes of the digital SOUND/STAGE series. She was also a part of the Global Citizen movement’s Global Goal campaign, a program which also included Coldplay, Shakira, Usher and more and was featured as a "DVF" Woman, a campaign started by clothing designer Diane Von Furstenberg recognizing leading women who also love fashion.

Bridges is a recipient of the prestigious 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence Award, a 2016 Richard Tucker Career Grant, first prize winner at the 2016 Francisco Viñas International Competition, first prize winner at the 2015 Gerda Lissner Competition, a recipient of the 2013 Sullivan Foundation Award, a 2012 Marian Anderson award winner, the recipient of the 2011 Sara Tucker Study Grant, the recipient of the 2009 Richard F. Gold Grant from The Shoshana Foundation, and the winner of the 2008 Leontyne Price Foundation Competition.