The American mezzo-soprano is returning this season for her second year in The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. This season she will make her Met debut in the role of Bertha/Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones (company premiere). Recently she appeared in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Marin Alsop. Recent roles include the Princess/Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Lady Catherine DeBourgh/Kirke Mechem’s Pride and Prejudice (stage premiere, Peabody Opera Theatre, the Witch/Hansel and Gretel (Opera Saratoga, also Chicago’s Manual Cinema), and the Governess/The Queen of Spades (Des Moines Metro Opera). Byrd is a native of Akron, Ohio, and an alumna of The Ohio State University and the Peabody Conservatory. She is also the first winner of the Wilson Vocal Award, a recurrent NATS finalist, a recipient of Peabody’s Artist Excellence Award, an awarded finalist in Peabody’s Vocal Studies Song Competition, a finalist in NYC’s Opera Ebony Competition, and a semi-finalist of The British Art Song Society Competition in London.