Sonya Keogh
Mezzo Soprano, BMus MPhil
Sonya Keogh is an opera singer, voice coach, youth music worker, cultural ambassador, and musicologist.
She made her operatic debut at Cork Opera House in 2000 and continues to enjoy a professional performance career as an opera singer, recitalist and recording artist.
She began her sacred music training at Christ Church Cathedral as a member of the cathedral choir and now serves as cantor and vocal director to the Chapel Chamber Choir at the Honan Chapel, University College Cork.
As a voice coach, professional 'overstudy' to emerging young artists, and youth music worker, Sonya is in demand internationally.
With years of experience, Sonya advocates a youth-centered approach with a clear emphasis on quality of process and excellence of artistic product.
In 2005 during Cork's year as European Capital of Culture, Sonya was invited to Japan by EU-Japan Fest to witness their youth music programs. In only four years, she has made eight performance and vocal workshop tours of Japan. She has performed for, and workshopped with, more than one thousand young performers throughout Japan. She has traveled and toured a 100-strong Irish children's chorus and a 20-piece Irish young string orchestra to Japan and has received and toured a Japanese jazz ensemble to Ireland. She has worked in collaboration with EU-Japan Fest and together their programs have been creative, ambitious and enormously successful. As their relationship continues, there continue to be many opportunities for future artistic and cultural collaborations between Ireland and Japan.
In 2008, Sonya was awarded an Artist's Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland to afford her the time to up skill and further specialise as a vocal director, coach and specialist to children's and youth chorus initiatives. Since this award, she has nurtured professional and collaborative links with children's and youth choruses in America, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Estonia, Hungary, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Working as director and artistic director, she is responsible for developing international youth artistic and cultural exchange programmes which foster international cooperation and cultural understanding.
As a founding director of ARTlifeCULTURE Ltd, Sonya promotes social investment through quality youth arts initiatives.
Sonya Keogh can be contacted at www.sonyakeogh.ie