London-born mezzo soprano Joanne Evans is a graduate of the Merola Opera Program, and of the residencies at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Britten Pears Young Artist Program, Fondation des Treilles and the Festival d’Aix en Provence where she was awarded Le Prix des Amis for Voice.

As an Artist in Residence with Opera San Jose for the 2025/2026 season, Joanne recently made her exciting role debut as Dorabella and will return for performances in La Traviata as Flora Bervoix, a role previously performed at Annapolis Opera. Upcoming performances include appearances with Opéra Comique, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and with Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Tokyo Spring Festival.

Joanne is frequently sought-after for new works, and recently premiered four new vocal-orchestral pieces at the Aldeburgh Festival, and four new piano-vocal songs at the Ear Taxi Festival, on behalf of the Ravinia Steans Institute.

As well as singing the role of Olga in Eugene Onegin at Music Academy of the West in 2022, Joanne was named winner of the Marilyn Horne Song Competition. This performance prompted a commission by Tom Cipullo, ‘Aubade with a Chance of Rain’, a song which has since been recorded with Laduga Records.  Elsewhere in competition, Joanne won first place in the 2022 Handel Aria Competition and was a Boston District winner in the 2022 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. She is a beneficiary of a Career Bridges grant and has received awards from the Gerda Lissner Foundation and the Premiere Opera Foundation. Joanne was a finalist in the 2025 Dallas Opera Lone Star Competition.

Joanne is a proud alumna of the Artist-in-Residence program at Opera Colorado where her mainstage performances included the role of Lucienne in Die Tote stadt and of Maddalena in a student matinee of Rigoletto.
 
Alongside singer and conductor, Micah Gleason, Joanne is co-founder of Loam Music, an artistic partnership presenting semi-immersive musical works. Loam’s current project is Daughter of God, a newly commissioned one-woman chamber opera which received its inaugural workshop at the Curtis Institute of Music in May 2024. 
 
Between 2014 and 2019, Joanne spent her time in London away from opera but performing in musicals and plays, including the U.K. regional premiere of Laura Wade’s ‘Posh’ at both Nottingham and Salisbury Playhouses, music for which was written for her by Isobel Waller-Bridge. Soon after, Joanne joined pop a cappella group Gobsmacked with whom she performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London’s Southbank, the Udderbelly residency in Hong Kong, and as part of a seven-month North American tour (including three sold-out shows at The Kennedy Center). Elsewhere she is credited with co-writing and performing the theme tune for BBC prime time show ‘Pitch Battle’.