With a performance career spanning concert, opera, new music, theater, recital, and more, Cherry Duke’s diverse body of work includes creating the role of The Captain in David T. Little and Royce Vavrek’s , touring with the , 60+ operatic roles, 30+ oratorio/concert roles, and numerous premieres and workshops of new works. Currently, Cherry Duke is a principal artist and , a regular soloist with the , and teaches voice and directs the opera program at ÀÇÓÑÊÓƵ. She has held the rank of Professor of Practice since 2018.
Named a “Champion of Diversity” by Black El Paso Voice, Cherry Duke is an active performer and researcher of classical vocal music by underrepresented composers. Her recital of art songs by African Diaspora composers was featured on KTEP radio and multiple conferences. She produces and directs zarzuela at UTEP and advocates for diversity in opera companies, orchestras, voice studios, schools, and solo competition repertoire. In 2024, she was asked to serve on the Texas University Interscholastic League’s committee for Vocal Solo and Ensemble repertoire, through which she hopes to make meaningful change to the visibility of underrecognized composers nationwide.
Opera Singer
On the opera stage, mezzo-soprano Cherry Duke has performed the title roles in Carmen, Hansel and Gretel, and L’italiana in Algeri, as well as critically acclaimed performances of the Captain in Dog Days, Nerone in The Coronation of Poppea, and Jo March in Little Women. She has performed Siébel in Faust and Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro with Winter Opera Saint Louis; the Third Lady in The Magic Flute with El Paso Opera, Opera Tampa, and Prism Opera; and Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri with Opera Company of Middlebury. In 2015 she repeated her world premiere role of the Captain in Dog Days with Fort Worth Opera and Los Angeles Opera and in 2016 performed it at New York City’s Prototype Festival. She is featured on the original cast album, released in 2016. Internationally, Duke sang the role of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly in Lima, Peru; Lady Olive in Dellaira’s The Secret Agent in Avignon, France, and Szeged, Hungary; and covered Suzuki and Jo March in NYCO’s 2005 tour of Japan. Duke was a principal artist with New York City Opera from 1999 until 2010.
Since 2016, Cherry Duke has been a regular guest artist with El Paso Opera. With EPO, she performed the role of Tisbe in La cenerentola; Hansel in Hansel and Gretel in an active train station; Third Lady in The Magic Flute in a Masonic temple; Julia Child in Bon Appétit, Flora in La traviata, Old Lady/Blair Daniels in Sunday in the Park with George. In 2024, she debuted with Central City Opera in the role of Olga Olsen in Street Scene.
In the 2024–25 season, she returns to the role of Julia Child with South Bend Lyric Opera and El Paso Opera and portrays Gertrude in EPO’s 2025 production of Roméo et Juliette.
New Music, Theater, and Cross-Over
Duke’s new music appearances are varied and numerous. The premiere and subsequent tours of led to the original cast album, released in 2016. With the Center for Contemporary Opera, she performed in the New York and European premieres of Dellaria’s The Secret Agent, in New York, France, and Hungary. Duke created the role of Sally Rogers in The Life and Love of Joe Coogan, based on an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show in 2010. Duke also workshopped works by Matt Aucoin (Crossing), Gerald Cohen (Steal A Pencil for Me), Kim Sherman (Ada), and Diedre Murray (Patient Zero, The Blackamoor Angel).
Cherry Duke has performed frequently in cross-over and music-theater works, including scenes from Scott Davenport Richards’ jazz opera Charlie Crosses the Nation; Don Davis’s salsa-inspired Rio de Sangre; and Gordon Beeferman’s post-modern Ratland, all with New York City Opera’s VOX Festival of New Works. At Bard’s SummerScape Festival and Joe’s Pub she was a featured singer-actor in Carl Hancock Rux and Diedre Murray’s “cabaret opera,” The Blackamoor Angel. Under the direction of MacArthur Fellowship winner , Duke played a singer in a theatrical mashup, Celebrate Good Times: Macbeth. She portrayed Mrs. Segstrom in Indiana Repertory Theatre’s A Little Night Music, alongside acclaimed opera and jazz singer Sylvia McNair. In 2018, she was the headliner for “Amor,” a cabaret/recital at the Philanthropy Theater in El Paso. In 2019, Cherry portrayed Dolly Levi to rave reviews in UTEP Dinner Theatre’s landmark production of
Oratorio and Orchestral Soloist
Cherry Duke has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. As an orchestral concert soloist, She was a featured soloist in such repertoire as Bach’s B-Minor Mass, St. John and St. Matthew Passions and Weihnachts-Oratorium; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mass in C and Choral Fantasy; Duruflé’s Requiem; Falla’s El Amor Brujo; Handel’s Messiah, several Haydn masses; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Mozart’s Vesperes Solennes, and Grand Mass in C; Rossini’s Stabat Mater; Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio; Vaughan-Williams’ Hodie and Magnificat; and Respighi’s Lauda per la Nativitá del Signore. She debuted in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 under the baton of Gerard Schwarz with Symphoria in Syracuse, New York, and reprised this role in 2016 with the El Paso Symphony Orchestra. In the fall of 2020, during the pandemic, Duke performed the vocal solo in under the baton of Dr. James Welsch in El Paso.
In addition to oratorio and symphonic appearances, Duke has frequently performed as a soloist in opera concerts with regional orchestras (Missouri Symphony Society, Johnstown Symphony Orchestra), including El Paso Symphony Orchestra’s February 2020 “A Night at the Met” concert featuring Metropolitan Opera tenor Paul Groves. Other special projects have included several presentations of A Spiritual Messiah and guest solo appearances with Roswell Symphony, ÀÇÓÑÊÓƵ Symphony, and others.
In 2021, Duke was the mezzo-soprano soloist in the world premiere of the El Paso Requiem by (to honor those lost in the Walmart massacre of August 2019).
Recitalist
As a recitalist, Cherry Duke specializes in works by underrepresented composers. In 2016, Duke debuted her recital of works by at Converse College and the University of Texas at El Paso and later was invited to perform the recital at the National Association of Teachers of Singing Texoma Regional Conference and Northeastern State University. Her program of was featured at UTEP and the Texoma NATS Conference in 2020. She premiered her recital featuring works of at UTEP in 2022. She presented excerpts from this program at the Texoma regional conference of The National Association of Teachers of Singing in 2022 and the Art Song Festival at Sam Houston State University in 2023. The program was broadcast on KTEP radio for Black History Month in 2023 and 2024.
Additionally, Duke has been a guest performer on recitals nationally and locally. In 2019, she was a guest artist at the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury, Vermont, with Cuban American composer Jorge Martín-Buján and tenor Brian Downen on a recital featuring Martín’s compositions. In 2023, she and Mr. Downen appeared in Decatur, Illinois on a recital with at the piano.
Educator and Director
In her early career, Cherry toured as a performer and a teaching artist for countless audiences of children in programs presented by The Metropolitan Opera Guild, New York City Opera’s Education Outreach, Connecticut Opera Express, New Orleans “MetroPelican” Opera, and Virginia Opera’s SPECtrum Resident Artist Program.
Cherry Duke joined the in the fall of 2015. A Professor of Practice, she teaches applied voice and directs the opera program. She has served on the voice faculty of Bay View Music Festival, Innovative Music Camps, and Clear Creek Music Festival, and has given masterclasses at the University of Delaware, Indiana Wesleyan University, Bethany College, El Paso Community College, Converse College, Salisbury University, Northeastern University, and the University of Alabama. She has also created and presented seminars on the business of music through her company, YourType Arts Partners, and has been a frequent guest speaker on music career-related topics at universities nationwide..
As director and producer of Opera UTEP, Duke presented a sold-out dinner theater production of Michael Ching’s Speed Dating Tonight with a live band at Ardovino’s Desert Crossing; Puccini’s Sister Angelica (paired with Act 2 of La bohème); a review of the music of Kurt Weill, paired with scenes and poetry from his literary collaborators; among others. In April 2020, Duke responded to the pandemic by converting the Spring Opera Showcase into an , combining virtual performances (recorded in students' homes) with live narration and commentary from the UTEP students.
As part of her mission of service to her students at UTEP, a Hispanic Serving Institution, Duke is (loosely translated as Spanish operetta). She has directed many programs of scenes featuring works from the traditional opera repertoire alongside pieces from the vast canon of zarzuela. In April 2022, she produced and directed Federico Moreno Torroba’s masterwork, Luisa Fernanda, featuring the ÀÇÓÑÊÓƵ Symphony Orchestra, Concert Chorale, Dance Team, and soloists from Opera UTEP, the voice faculty, and UTEP voice alumni. Additionally, in January 2022, she presented “The Case for Zarzuela in Collegiate Opera and Voice Programs” at the National Opera Association annual conference, in collaboration with Dr. Paulina Villareal.
In 2023, she commissioned Dr. to adapt her song cycle, Four Foxy Fables, into a 35-minute opera for children entitled . Duke’s opera students at UTEP premiered the work for around 1000 children at UTEP, local schools, the YWCA, and the El Paso Museum of Art.
For El Paso Opera, Cherry Duke has served as Assistant Director to Justin Lucero for the 2022 production of Frida, and, as Director of Resident Artists for EPO, she directed the eight resident artists in a showcase for the 2024 Encores and Overtures gala. She will also plan the repertoire and direct the RAs in a 2025 program to feature each artist.
Duke has received awards for her research and teaching at UTEP, including a 2021 Career Enhancement Award, the 2022 Dr. Ann Horak and Charles Horak III Teaching Excellence Endowment Award, the 2022 Outstanding Community Engagement Project Award, 2023 Faculty College Marshal for the College of Liberal Arts. In 2023, she received a Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards (ROTA) from the University of Texas System for exceptional teaching performance and innovation.
Background
A Texas native, Duke graduated summa cum laude from Texas Woman’s University, where she studied with renowned mezzo-soprano and pedagogue Joan Wall. At the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, she received an Artist Diploma in Opera Performance. Duke was an apprentice artist at Opera North, Chautauqua Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera and completed additional study at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv. Her voice teachers have included Trish McCaffrey, Elaine Bonazzi, Ruth Golden, Shirley Love, David Jones, and Judith Natalucci. Cherry Duke is a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, Opera America, National Opera Association, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the American Guild of Musical Artists, and Actor’s Equity Association.
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