Alice Del Simone

Performance

Dr. Alice Del Simone, a San Francisco Bay Area native, is a soprano, pedagogue, and scholar whose work integrates performance, teaching, and voice science research. She is Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of Vocal Studies at the University of Richmond. Del Simone holds a BA in Vocal Performance and a BS in Plant Science from the University of California, Davis, and both an MM and DMA in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Colorado Boulder.

An active and versatile performer, Del Simone engages with a wide range of operatic, concert, and chamber repertoire. Recent operatic appearances include Susanna in Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret and First Witch in Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Opera Fort Collins; Sophie in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier; the Cricket and Blue Fairy in Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio; and La Princesse, Le Rossignol, and Le Feu in Maurice Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges with Boulder Opera Company. She has also appeared as Kitty Hart in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Nannetta in Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff, La Fée in Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon, the Lady with a Hand Mirror in Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco, and Poppea in George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina with Eklund Opera, as well as Gilda in Lori Laitman’s The Three Feathers with Opera Steamboat.

On the concert stage, Del Simone has recently performed Bubikopf in Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with Colorado MahlerFest, the Israelitish Woman in Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with Seicento Baroque Ensemble, and as soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with Boulder Bach Festival (COmpass REsonance) and Kalos Arts Foundation. In 2025, as part of Duo Cordifolia, her collaborative partnership with pianist Matthew Sebald, she performed Voices of the Wild, a recital produced by Art Song Colorado. Del Simone is also an active choral performer, having appeared with Colorado Bach Ensemble, Boulder’s Ars Nova, 21V, Volti, San Francisco Ballet, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Berkeley Symphony, and ODC, among others.

New Works

As a champion of new works, Del Simone has participated in new opera workshops including appearances as Vera Tyrell in Mark Adamo’s Sarah in the Theater and Joan of the Hustle in Kamala Sankaram’s Joan of the City with CU NOW, and as the soprano artist for CU NOW’s Composer Fellows’ Initiative. She also created the role of Clytemnestra in the premiere of Anne Hege’s The Furies with Stanford Laptop Orchestra and recently commissioned a set of songs from composer Eric Tuan called I Shall Go West, set to poems by Mary Hunter Austin exploring the flora and fauna of California’s High Sierra Region.

Del Simone’s artistry has been recognized through numerous awards, including first place in both the Art Song Colorado Competition and the West Central Regional National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards, as well as fourth place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition. She has also been named a semifinalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards and a finalist in the CU Boulder Ekstrand Competition.

Scholarship

In parallel with her performance career, Del Simone pursues an active program of research. She has presented her work at national and interdisciplinary conferences, including the Pan American Vocology Association Symposium, National Association of Teachers of Singing National Conference, the Voice Foundation Symposium, and the Colorado Music Educators Association Conference. Additional scholarship includes collaborative, cross-disciplinary presentations such as “Death Strikes: An Opera Survives WWII and Comes to Comics” at San Diego Comic-Con International and Atlanta Dragon Con, reflecting an interest in the cultural and historical contexts of vocal performance. Del Simone has also guest lectured in undergraduate and graduate vocal pedagogy courses and completed advanced training in voice science through the Summer Vocology Institute. As a recurring guest host on the VocalFri podcast, she engages with current research and leading voices in the field, supporting the translation of scientific knowledge into pedagogical practice.

Additionally, Del Simone is an engaged educator and arts leader. She served as Education Director for Boulder Opera Company, where she designed and implemented outreach programming reaching thousands of students, for which she stage directed the bilingual children’s opera Xochitl and the Flowers by Chris Praetorius Gómez.