University of Arkansas Graduate Wins National Singing Competitions

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Sarah Mesko

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Sarah Mesko, a 2008 graduate of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, is emerging as a promising young artist on both operatic and concert stages. During the spring 2008 semester, she won first place in two prestigious national singing competitions. In March she was declared the winner of the Franco-American Vocal Academy’s Grands Concours de Chant, singing both concert and operatic literature in French. She received a $5,000 award. In May, Sarah won the $10,000 first prize at the national singing competition of the National Society of Arts and Letters at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.

Her 2007-08 season included The Messiah with the Fort Smith Symphony, the role of Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, and Dorothée in Cendrillon with the Aspen Opera Theater Center.

A frequent concert artist, Sarah Mesko has appeared as a soloist with the North Arkansas Symphony and the Sinfonia of the Aspen Music Festival as well as the Hot Springs Music Festival, Arkansas Youth, and University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestras. Her diverse concert repertoire includes Bach’s Johannes-passion, Handel’s Messiah, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and Mozart’s Requiem. In 2008-09 she will rejoin the Fort Smith Symphony for a performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

Sarah completed the bachelor of music degree in both vocal performance and flute performance from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. She was a recipient of the prestigious Bodenhamer Fellowship, graduated summa cum laude, was a First Ranked Senior Scholar, received the Harold D. Hantz Four-Year Scholar Award and was a student speaker at the 2008 Fulbright College commencement ceremony. Mesko is the vocal student of Janice Yoes at the university, and is the daughter of Allan and Kathy Mesko of Hot Springs. She is a 2003 graduate of Lakeside High School. 

This fall she will begin her graduate studies at Rice University in Houston, where she will study with Stephen King.