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Soprano Maria Khoobyar has recently moved to Boston, Ma, and is attending Boston University. She is a former Houston resident, and native of Washington DC, but New York City audiences most recently saw her in Leanna Kirchoff’s (Opera America funded workshop performance of) Friday After Friday, an all-female middle eastern production about women’s experiences living in Syria.

Her other recent credits are Mimi in La Bohème, and Alice Ford cover in Falstaff. And in 2022 she will be performing in a one-woman chamber opera entitled A Monodrama in Three Shapes, by Daniel Sabzghabaei in NYC. This Opera America funded production will explore through song, Persian poetry, and movement a woman’s right to choose whether or not to cover her face. She also actively performs as a soloist or vocalist with the Assyrian Arts Institute from 2020-present.

In 2018 she earned her Masters in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. While at the Moores School of Music, she performed as Suzel in Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz, Fata Morgana in Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges, Beatrice Fazzobaldi in John Musto’s The Inspector, and Sarah Good in The Crucible. Other professional performances include Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with the Moores School of Music Cello Studio Ensemble, Operativo’s Soirée Musicales and Guest Artist with the ECHO Orchestra singing ‘The Czardas’ from Die Fledermaus and “Un bel di vedremo” from Madame Butterfly.

From 2010-2016 Maria performed with the Houston Grand Opera Chorus, most notably in the 2016 world premiere of Carisle Floyd’s Prince of Players and in HGO’s North American premiere and Lincoln Center Festival performances of Mieczysław Weinburg’s The Passenger. Additional full roles include Pamina, Micaela and Belinda in Dido and Aeneas.