Boston based soprano and flutist Mara Riley is recognized for her compelling musicality, having a particular affinity for early music, art song, and ensemble work. The 2025-2026 season brings performances with the Boston Early Music Festival in Boston, New York, and Germany. She will sing the role of Armillo in Provenzale’s La Stellidaura vendicante, and joins the company of Telemann’s Don Quichotte at the Magdeburger Telemann-Festtage. She sings with Aeternum in Napa Valley, CA, and attends Toronto Summer Music’s Art of Song program as a vocal fellow.

Recent solo appearances have been with Emmanuel Music, the Boston EarlyMusic Festival (Telemann’s Don Quichotte), Sarasa Ensemble (Tavener’s Akhmatova Songs), Colorado Bach Ensemble (BWV 47, BWV 10), Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, the Boulder Bach Festival, Cambridge Chamber Ensemble (Handel’s Samson), Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra (Handel’s Messiah), and the Back Bay Chorale (Handel’s Israel inEgypt). She was a 2024/2025 Voces8 US Scholar. She received an honorable mention in the 2024 Calliope’s Call Young Singer Art Song Competition.

In 2023, she was named first prize winner in the Colorado Bach Ensemble’s Young Artist Competition. She was the 2023 soprano fellow with Emmanuel Music’s Bach Institute, and she has since sung regularly with Emmanuel Music.

She sang the role of Calisto in Cavalli’s La Calisto at the New England Conservatory. Other favorite opera roles have included: Mary Bailey in Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Héro in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict. As a baroque flutist, she has performed with Blue Hill Bach, Boston Early Music Festival, and the Handel + Haydn Society (upcoming). She recently completed a double masters (MM ‘24) in Flute and Vocal Performance at the New England Conservatory.