Lauded as “fantastic” by The Toronto Star and observed as demonstrating “masterful vocal control” by The Boston Musical Intelligencer, soprano Kristin Renee Young began her musical studies at age five with the violin. Equally at home in the worlds of opera, oratorio, recital, musical theater, and voiceover, Kristin has appeared at world-renowned venues, such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, Meridian Hall in Toronto, and The Metropolitan Opera.

Kristin opened the 2024-25 season with the Idaho State-Civic Symphony as the soloist for Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 under the direction of Maestro Nell Flanders. She will debut at the Harris Theater in Chicago in a remounting of Joplin’s Treemonisha, as well as with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra in the orchestral version of Omar’s Journey by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. Other season highlights include Micaëla in Le tragédie de Carmen with New Camerata Opera; the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with Fort Greene Orchestra; and Zenobia in Handel’s Radamisto with Opera Essentia.

In 2023-24, Kristin performed the role of Sophia in VALIS, an opera written by Tod Machover and stage directed by Jay Schieb, at MIT Media Lab. She sang in a concert of staged art songs, including a song cycle by Chicago-based composer Matthew Recio, directed by John de los Santos with New Camerata Opera. In Spring 2024, Kristin performed with Opera Essentia as Alceste in an abridged version of Handel’s Admeto.

In 2022-2023, Kristin made her international debut in the role of Lucy in Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, arranged by Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth, at the Luminato Festival and TO Live. She also debuted the role of Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos with Barn Opera and performed the soprano solo in Schubert’s Stabat Mater with the Colby Symphony Orchestra and Chorale.

Other highlights include Kristin’s debut with The Metropolitan Opera in 2021 in productions of Boris Godunov and Porgy and Bess; a debut with Asolo Repertory Theatre as Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music, directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes; the Queen of the Night in Black Flute, a reimagined version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, in a film production with IN Series Opera; and a debut with New York City Opera as Williams in the premier of Stonewall by Iain Bell and Mark Campbell at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater.

Kristin was a 2018 recipient of The Marc and Eva Stern - Los Angeles Opera Fellowship at SongFest. She has also performed with American Lyric Theater, Ardea Arts, Beth Morrison Project, Center for Contemporary Arts, Corkscrew Theater Festival, Encompass New Opera, Gotham Chamber Opera, Harlem Opera Theater, International Brazilian Opera Company, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Orchestra of Indian Hill, Orquesta Brasileira de Arte, Cultura, e História, Philadelphia Sinfonia Players, Rites of Spring Festival, and Symphony 21.  

Roles performed include Adina (L'elisir d'amore), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Constance (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Despina (Così fan tutte), Maria (West Side Story), Monica (The Medium), Mrs. Julian (Owen Wingrave), Nanetta (Falstaff), Norina (Don Pasquale), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Zerlina (Don Giovanni).

Kristin has worked with several conductors, including Neviton Barros, Kalena Bovell, Neal Goren, Carolyn Kuan, Bruce Hangen, and Lidiya Yankovskaya; directors, such as Weyni Mengesha and Jennifer Williams; and has sung in master classes with Phyllis Curtin, Margo Garrett, Jake Heggie, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, David Kneuss, and Thomas Muraco.

In addition to her singing work, Kristin made her professional voiceover debut in 2022 as narrator in a performance of a chamber work, Jaro and the Frog, by Gretchen Yanover at Carnegie Hall.

Kristin received a master’s degree from Boston University and graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University.  Kristin hails from Philadelphia and currently resides in Brooklyn, where she is also a certified yoga instructor.