Grace Sawyko is a young lyric soprano from Northern New York. She is currently
finishing her MM in Vocal Performance (2026) at the San Francisco Conservatory of
Music (SFCM), where she studies with Catherine Cook. Most recently, she performed as
Mrs. Grose in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at SFCM, under the baton of
Michael Christie and direction of Heather Mathews.
Grace received her BM in Vocal Performance in 2024 from Ithaca College in New
York State, where she studied with Dr. Bradley Hougham. While at Ithaca College,
Grace performed as the Modern Major-General in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of
Penzance, Madame Silberklang in Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor, and covered Stella
in Viardot’s Le dernier sorcier.
Grace is an experienced multi-genre performer, having performed as Little Red in
Into the Woods (Brevard Music Center, 2023), and Marian Ames in Swingtime Canteen
(SFCM, 2025). She has participated in masterclasses with Dawn Upshaw, Elizabeth
Futral, Ryan McKinny, and Howard Watkins. She has also participated in multiple
crossover singing intensives with world-famous soprano, Patricia Racette.
This past summer, Grace attended Musiktheater Bavaria in Oberaudorf,
Germany. Previously, Grace has attended the Brevard Music Center’s (BMC) Summer
Opera Institute in 2022 and 2023. This upcoming summer, Grace will make her Opera
Parallèle debut covering Sister Aloysius in Douglas J. Cuomo’s newly re-imagined
chamber opera, Doubt. Grace will be singing with the San Francisco Opera Chorus this
fall in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the San Francisco Opera. Then, she will head back
east to begin her DMA in Opera Performance at the University of Maryland, under the
tutelage of Dr. Teri Bickham.