Heralded for her “clear vibrant tone” (Opera Canada) and her “good comedic acting...with [a] powerful, agile voice” (Burnaby Now), Tamar Simon is an Armenian-Canadian soprano based in Vancouver, Canada. She has been featured in many leading operatic roles including Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Musetta (La bohème), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni). She was recently seen as Clorinda in La cenerentola with both Brott Opera and Lunenburg Academy of Music, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus with Toronto City Opera, as well as Tour Guide in The Museum of the Lost and Found, a new work composed by Olivia Shortt in collaboration between Highlands Opera Studio and Loose Tea Music Theatre. A frequent performer around British Columbia, Tamar was featured in the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival as the soprano soloist for their New Works Project and has performed with Vancouver Opera in their outreach concert series. She also has been engaged with Burnaby Lyric Opera in their mainstage production of Il barbiere di Siviglia as Rosina and their concert production of L’elisir d’amore as Adina.

Tamar has performed as a soloist with many Canadian ensembles including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, and White Rock Concerts. She was recently featured in her solo recital Mélodies arméniennes et airs d’opéras with Société d’Art Vocal de Montréal which featured a number of Armenian art songs and arias from the Armenian opera Anoush. Tamar has also been seen on international stages, including appearances as Zerlina (Don Giovanni) in Kona, Hawaii and as Calisto (La Calisto) in Sulmona, Italy and has traveled to Pilzen, Czech Republic and Nürnberg, Germany performing excerpts from La traviata, La bohème, and Die Fledermaus. Last season, she was a featured as a soloist with the Mississippi Valley Orchestra in Saint Paul, Minnesota performing the Gustav Mahler song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

Tamar is a District Winner and an Encouragement Award Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She has participated in a number of esteemed young artist programs and artistic fellowships including Brott Opera, the Lunenburg Academy of Music Program, and Highlands Opera Studio. Tamar expanded upon her vocal and art song studies in Austria after receiving the Johann Strauss Foundation Scholarship, which sponsored study at the Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum under soprano Helen Donath and baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. She is a graduate of University of British Columbia’s Master of Music program in opera performance where she performed many leading roles, most notably the role of Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro where she was described as “believable and engaging Susanna, passing from innocence to subtlety to assertion, always in control and always the unrecognized protagonist” (Opera Canada). She was also seen as Tytania in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ciboletta in Eine Nacht in Venedig, and The Foreign Woman in The Consul.