Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee), is an American soprano.

She studied at Illinois Wesleyan University, receiving B.A. in 1982. There she pursued vocal training with Ellen Faull at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, receiving an M.A. in 1984. She also attended courses given by Jan DeGaetani at the Aspen (Colorado) Music School. She was a winner of the Young Concert Artists auditions (1984) and the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (1985), and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Development Program.

Applauded in the opera houses of New York, Paris, Salzburg, and Vienna for her portrayals of the great Mozart roles, she is equally renowned for work in more remote corners of the repertory - most recently, as the title character in Händel's Theodora, triumphantly staged in Glyndebourne by Peter Sellars.

Her engagements with James Levine over the years have led to a recording of Debussy songs released at the end of March 1997 on Sony Classical. She tours annually with Richard Goode , and both Margo Garrett and Gilbert Kalish are also long-standing partners. In the 1995-1996 season, Dawn Upshaw commissioned a staging of Bach's cantata BWV 199 by Peter Sellars as part of a three concert series at New York's 92nd St 'Y' entitled Voices of the Spirit.

She rejoined Sellars in Paris in the Fall of 1996 when she appeared as Anne in his new production of The Rake's Progress, a role she recently recorded.

Deeply involved with the music of our time, Dawn Upshaw is a particular champion of the music of John Harbison, though he is only one of a number of composers who have written for her. Her advocacy of contemporary music is compellingly evident in a broad range of solo recordings, among which are several Grammy, Gramophone, and Edison prize winning discs.

A familiar performer on television, Dawn Upshaw has been a guest of President Clinton and Mrs Clinton on the NBC special, "Christmas in Washington". The BBC presented a prime-time telecast of her 1996 London Proms Concert, "Dawn at Dusk", in which she performed music of American music theatre repertory.

Dawn Upshaw holds a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music and an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University.

Source: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Upshaw-Dawn.htm