Lester Senter
Mezzo Soprano

Mezzo soprano Lester Senter has appeared with leading opera companies, festivals and symphonies across America as well as abroad, including Spoleto USA, Glimmerglass, Des Moines, Dallas, New Orleans, Denver, Milwaukee, Sarasota, Grand Rapids, Knoxville, Birmingham, Mobile, Amarillo, Shreveport, Jackson, Mississippi, Guadalajara, Mexico and Dublin, Ireland.

Miss Senter’s vocal career was launched with three Rossini heroines:   Cenerentola, Isabella and Rosina, and has expanded to over 50 roles including Carmen, Hansel, Suzuki (Butterfly), Dorabella (Cosi), Niklausse (Hoffman), Orlovsky (Fledermaus), the Composer (Ariadne), the Old Lady (Candide), the Mother (Amahl) and Maddalena (Rigoletto) to mention a few.

Works have been written for her by leading composers Judith Zaimont, Lee Hoiby, Luigi Zanninelli, Michael Cave, Randolph Bass and Colman Pearce.   “The Memory is a Living Thing,” one of her ten recordings, is based on the writings of Eudora Welty.   In addition she has appeared on educational television productions in Iowa and Mississippi.   Of her New York debut, the New York Times critic wrote that she “performed superbly.”
Premiere performances include The Shoe Bird by Sam Jones, text by Eudora Welty, with the Mississippi Boys Choir and Orchestra, as well as “Virgie Rainey,” (also based on the writings of Eudora Welty) commissioned from Judith Zaimont for Miss Senter.

Miss Senter produced and starred in a multi-media production of Robinson & Friends to commemorate the Centennial of Mississippi Artist and Writer, Walter Anderson.   Robinson & Friends was first produced in Jackson, MS; then toured to Ocean Springs, MS at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC as a part of the Anderson Centennial Exhibit there, and the Phillips Collection in Washington the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, TN and the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC

Miss Senter has a D.M.A. in piano and voice, the first double major presented by the University of Texas in Austin.   In August 2004 she received The Mississippi Honored Artist Award from the National Museum of Women in the Arts.   In 2001 Miss Senter was the recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, presented by the Mississippi Arts Commission.   In 2002 she played Orfeo in a specially mounted production of Orfeo ed Euridice to commemorate her twenty-fifth anniversary with the Mississippi Opera.   Senter has been the Executive Director of the Wideman Competition since 1985.

Miss Senter is represented by Anthony George Artist Management of New York.