About Sam
Recognized nationally for his “innate musicality” and “ethereal tone,” countertenor Sam Higgins is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music studying under Julia Faulkner and Amanda Majeski. He also attended Curtis for his undergraduate education, studying under Ms. Faulkner. A passionate interpreter of both early and new music since the age of 11, Higgins has worked with orchestras and opera companies including Boston Lyric Opera, the Nashville Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, the Boston Symphony Pops, the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, ChoralArts Philadelphia, and the New England Philharmonic, among many others. He is a passionate environmental advocate, commissioning the new work Deep Blue (for string quartet and countertenor) by Adrian Wong as a tribute to ocean conservationist Sylvia Earle.
Higgins’ 2026-27 season includes debuts with two major opera companies; as Arsace in Handel’s Partenope with Pittsburgh Opera and as Bacchus in Purcell’s Bacchae, a newly woven-together work premiering at West Edge Opera. On the concert stage, he will sing the alto solos in Handel’s Messiah with the Wichita Symphony, Beethoven’s Mass in C with Binghamton Philharmonic, and Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater with Providence Baroque. Back at Curtis for his final year of his Master’s degree, he will record an album of German lieder with pianist Miloš Repický and perform a concert of English Baroque with Leon Schelhase. Additionally, he will partner with the University of Pennsylvania and author Joyce Carol Oates to lead a libretto symposium and subsequent performance of a newly constructed operetta based on her famous short story Where are you going, where have you been?.
In the 2025/26 Season, Higgins will spend the summer as a Renee Fleming Artist at Aspen Music Festival covering Anthony Roth Costanzo as Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He will also step in last minute to cover countertenor Key’mon Murrah at the Nashville Symphony as Voice of God in Jonathan Leshnoff’s oratorio The Sacrifice of Isaac. With ChoralArts Philadelophia, Higgins will sing the alto solos in the Easter Oratorio of J.S. Bach. At Curtis, he will star as Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and perform several other works includingthe Brahms Alto/Viola songs with Primrose 1st Prize-Winning violist Emad Zolfaghari, the alto parts in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a program of german art song, and the role of Pastore in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.
Higgins has been the First Prize recipient of many competitions, including the Fidelity Young Artists Competition at the Boston Pops (2018), the Schmidt Lower Undergraduate Competition (2023), the National Classical Singer Competition (2020), the NATS Competition (2021), the Schmidt High School Competition (2021), and the UMass Young Artists Award (2021). Additionally, he was awarded 2nd Place in the 2023 National MiOpera Competition.
On the operatic stage, Higgins has performed a variety of roles from baroque to contemporary, including Nerone in Handel’s Agrippina (Boston Early Music Festival), The Poet (cv.) in Vivaldi/Sarah Ruhl’s The Seasons (Boston Lyric Opera), Nero/JBH in Monteverdi/Lewis’ The Comet/Poppea (Curtis Opera Theater), Ruggiero in Handel’s Alcina (Chautauqua) and many more.
Higgins’ passion for concert work has been prominent for over a decade. At the age of 11, he sang his first Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein, proceeding to sing the work over twenty more times between 2015 and 2025. As a boy soprano, he also sang several commissioned works as well as a new piece for the dedication of Trygve Lie Plaza at the United Nations in New York City (2016). The prime minister of Norway and many other dignitaries were in attendance. In more recent years as a countertenor, Higgins’ passion for Bach’s music has been at the forefront. He has performed six of Bach’s magnificent cantatas, two of which are for solo alto, with such ensembles as Emmanuel Music, American Bach Soloists, the NHMF Orchestra, and ChoralArts Philadelphia. At Curtis, he has performed as a soloist with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in a new piece by Leigha Amick (2024), and in many chamber groups and ensembles performing works such as Ich habe genug (Bach), From Hardy Climes and Dangerous Toils of War (Purcell), scenes from La Clemenza di Tito (Mozart) and Orfeo ed Euridice (Gluck), and a staged version of Handel’s L’Allegro, among others. He has been asked to premiere pieces by three different Curtis composers on six different occasions.
In February of 2020, Higgins appeared on NPR’s “From the Top,” singing “Dove sei, amato bene?” from Handel’s Rodelinda. He has also participated in such programs as Renee Fleming Artist at Aspen Music Festival (2026), Boston Early Music Festival (2025), Houston Grand Opera’s YAVA (2024), Chautauqua Opera Conservatory (2024), Emmanuel Music Bach Institute (2024), American Bach Soloists Academy (2023), YoungArts (2021), The Metropolitan Opera Guild Intensive (2019), and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (2019). Higgins has been asked to sing in masterclasses conducted by stars such as Renée Fleming, Anne Sophie von Otter, Denyce Graves, Nicholas Phan, Russel Thomas, and Nicholas McGegan, among others.
His 2024/25 Season began with The Comet/Poppea, followed by “Christmas at Emmanuel” with Emmanuel Music, where he sang the countertenor solo in Evan Williams’ Little Mass for Christmas. Between January and February of 2025, Higgins performed the premiere of From the Memory of Machines by Leigha Amick and sang multiple recitals at Curtis, with Winsor Music, and more. In March, he headed to Boston Lyric Opera to cover Anthony Roth Costanzo in The Seasons, a new opera co-conceived with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl. In April and May, Higgins sang Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the Westchester Symphony and performed his cultivated Senior Recital at Curtis of Vivaldi, Handel, and Adrian Wong in a program centered around changes in the weather due to climate change. He rounded out his 24/25 season by singing Nerone in Handel’s masterpiece Agrippina at the Boston Early Music Festival, as well as covering Tiridates in Reinhard Keiser’s Octavia.
