American soprano Sara Tillett is thrilled to perform the world premiere of composer Michael McAndrew’s song cycle, Ghostly Sentiments, as part of the 2025 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She will perform this piece for a second time in November as a guest artist at Lamar University. Sara’s fall season also includes a professional debut with Village Opera, singing in the chorus and covering Marguerite in Faust. In October, she will make her role debut as Mrs. Gobineau in The Medium, directed by Josh Miller, with Delaware Valley Opera Company. 

In recent engagements, Sara was a Young Artist with Liberty City Arts, where she coached with Rachelle Jonck and performed in their Lieder in the Liberties concert series. In 2024, she was invited on short notice to perform Annina in La Traviata with New Jersey Lyric Opera. Since then, she has appeared with NJLO in several encore performances of La Traviata and covered Adina in their production of L’elisir d’amore.

Sara’s concert work features several premieres, including Double by Michael McAndrew and a choral work, Duo, by Mohammed Fairouz. In 2022, she was a soprano soloist in Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem with the US Army War College and Dickinson College for a two-week symposium on War, Justice, and Peace. Additional solo features include Boldemann’s Four Epitaphs, Bach’s Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major, Dvorak’s Mass in D Minor, and Rutter’s Magnificat. 

Sara is a graduate of Mannes School of Music at The New School, where she earned her Artist Diploma in opera performance, studying with Beth Roberts and Joshua Greene. Notable engagements with the opera studio include Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. During Mannes’ opera scenes program, Sara performed as Contessa di Folleville in Il viaggio a Reims and as Manon in Manon. She also performed selections from Smetana’s Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride) and as a collaborative soloist with Czech folk band, Spirituál Kvintet, at Bohemian National Hall during Mannes Sounds Festival in New York City. 

Sara earned her Bachelor of Arts from Dickinson College and her Master of Music in opera performance from SUNY Binghamton, where she performed the role of Belinda in Dido and Aeneas and scenes as Sœur Constance (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Adele (Die Fledermaus). As part of her graduate degree requirements, she performed professionally with Tri-Cities Opera in La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, and Suor Angelica. During her graduate studies, she attended AIMS in Graz and Utah Valley OperaFest, where she made her operatic debut as Despina in Così Fan Tutte.

She currently studies with Jack Li Vigni and Ting Ting Wong in Philadelphia.