Liz Upchurch

Pianist, vocal coach, and pedagogue Liz Upchurch is currently in her 25th season as Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, Canada’s premier training program for young opera professionals. There, she has now trained a generation of Canadian artists.

She is a recent recipient of Canada’s prestigious Ruby Award for her outstanding contribution to the world of opera.

She performed her first piano recital at the age of eight, one year after having accepted a coveted place at the Centre for Young Musicians, a music school for gifted children in London, England. It was here that her passion for playing with other instrumentalists truly began. Her love of the human voice and its marriage to text was soon to follow. She came to Canada to study art song at the Banff Centre, where she met her mentor, the late Martin Isepp.

Since then, she has curated, performed, and collaborated in hundreds of recitals across Canada, working alongside artists and composers such as Adrianne Pieczonka, Barbara Hannigan, Kaija Saariaho, and Ana Sokolović.