Mary Bonhag is an “extraordinary” singer (Classical Voice N. America) committed to the healing powers of song.  She is both a new-music specialist and a singer deeply devoted to sacred music across the ages.  Mary was featured on Resonant Bodies Festival, and has sung with 21st Century Consort, and San Francisco Contemporary Players.  Mary recently premiered a new chamber opera by Susan Botti, River Spirits, an allegorical tale featuring Mary, Susan Botti, and Lucy Shelton.

Mary is sought after for her impeccable musicianship and “supple expressive voice” (San Antonio News) for concert work, specializing in the sacred music of J.S. Bach.  She has soloed with conductors John Harbison and John Butt on Bach cantatas and St. John Passion and has performed for Middlebury Bach Festival, Viva Bach Peterborough, among others.

In 2010, Mary co-founded Scrag Mountain Music with her husband, composer/bassist Evan Premo, now in its 12th year of organizing chamber music residencies and innovative and affordable concerts around Vermont.  Programs that she has curated range from art museum recitals to concerts contextualizing some of the great vocal chamber music of the 20th century (Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Shostakovich’s Romances) to mixing old and new music, folk and classical.

Mary has presented art song recitals at Dartmouth, Smith, Goucher, and University of Vermont.

Since COVID, she has devoted much of her personal practice and professional work to chant and recorded Wellspring: Centering Chants for Uncertain Times by Kathy Wonson Eddy.  Since 2020, she has been leading Taizé chant services both online and in person.

Collaborations and relationships are central to Mary’s professional life as a singer and she enjoys close partnerships with pianist David Kaplan, Aizuri Quartet, Aeolus Quartet, Decoda, Spektral Quartet, conductor Filippo Ciabatti, and numerous composers including premiering or commissioning works by Lembit Beecher, Susan Botti, Evan Premo, Shawn Jaeger, Eliza Brown, Evan Chambers, and C. Curtis Smith.  From 2021-2022, she also collaborated with band leader Andric Severance on creating new material for The Quarry Project, Hannah Dennison’s site-specific dance piece on floating stages in an abandoned granite quarry.

After studies at University of Michigan and Bard College (under Dawn Upshaw’s mentorship), she was invited to residence at SongFest, Fall Island, and Tanglewood. While at Tanglewood, she was honored with the Grace B. Jackson Prize and her performances of Schoenberg’s String Quartet no. 2, excerpts from Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantefables, Grieg and Sibelius songs, and David Lang’s Just were received with great acclaim.

Mary is featured on the NPR show Performance Today and appears on Albany Records.  In between travels, she lives and makes music with her family in Vermont amongst the pine trees and flowers.