Heather Fetrow
Soprano, conductor, composer & advocate for women in the arts
“Heather Fetrow springs to life tossing off brilliant high notes with a sheen of excitement”
Heather Fetrow creates collaborative, cutting-edge performances and educational experiences that inspire audiences to progress the opportunities of female musicians.
Heather’s mission is to celebrate the musical contributions of women
Heather promotes the musical works of female composers, vocal artists, and role models both past and present. She does this work through educational musical performances designed to inspire audiences through song and story. Because the artistic work of women has been underrepresented throughout history, her work intentionally places the work of women as the focal point of music history to frame this problem with a lens of exposure. She does this by making clear comparisons of their work to that of more traditionally well-known male composers and musical works. This creates the effect of highlighting the contrast of the feminine perspective and women’s vast contributions to the musical arts. Heather’s work is designed to prove that the quality of their work rivals that of their male counterparts, often even surpassing it.
Female musicians throughout history should be household names
Heather believes in a future where the suppressed story of these women is well known and no longer relegated to a special chapter on “Women in Music” in textbooks. She dreams of a day when young girls will know that the artistic expression of women throughout the centuries was unquestionably always as “good” as art created by men. When people answer the question: “Who are the greatest musicians that ever lived?” the names Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms will be in parallel to Bingen, Beach and Boulanger.
Leading by example, Heather is blazing a bright trail
As an avid recitalist, Heather has appeared on Rutgers University Mallery Recital Series, the Church of the Epiphany's concert series in Washington DC and at the Cell Theater in New York City. Heather made her Kennedy Center debut with Washington National Opera Chorus in 2019 in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.
She has also been featured as a soprano in a number of roles and solos with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Brevard Music Center, Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, Garden State Opera, Kinnara Ensemble, Angels Vocal Art Carnegie Hall Debut and the Westminster Choir (see discography). Formerly a soprano at Christ Church United Methodist in New York City, she is currently based in the Washington DC metro area and maintains an active private voice studio. She will debut the role of the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera Pannonica on Crete, Greece in August 2022. Her debut album, Voices of Women: From Unknown to Renowned was one of Spotify's New Classical music albums of note in 2018. Her mission to create change through her art form continues to motivate her passion for performing music composed by and about women, in close collaboration with active composers. She is a member of AGMA.