Meg Bragle

Meg Bragle is an American mezzo-soprano and a leading interpreter of Baroque and Classical repertoire. Frequently a featured soloist with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, she has performed with them at the Leipzig Bachfest and the Prague Spring, Luzerne, Aldeburgh and Brighton festivals, and has made several recordings with the group. Meg brings a combination of vocal clarity, musical intelligence, and heartfelt connection to every stage she graces—from Carnegie Hall to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Her work as Artist in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and as co-founder of the National Oratorio Competition reflects her deep commitment to supporting the next generation of musicians. Meg is also the afternoon classical music host on WRTI 90.1 FM, where she invites listeners into the living world of classical music. At Penn, she also directs Collegium Musicum, the Opera and Music Theater Workshop, and advises and supports students through her work at Platt House.

Would you mind introducing yourself?

Sure. I function in several different ways in my professional life. I’m a professional mezzo-soprano—I’ve been singing for over 20 years, and I sing over a thousand years of music, from the medieval era to music written two years ago. Performing was my primary career for a long time, although I’ve always taught.

Now that I’m at Penn, I increasingly think of myself as a scholar-performer. Because I focus on Baroque and earlier eras, I can’t step on the stage without having done research. A program might begin with a manuscript, a historical figure, or a question I haven’t seen a satisfactory answer to, and that eventually finds its way into performance. That’s a brilliant thing about being at Penn: I can follow those questions in a deeper way than I could when I was just performing and on the road all the time.

I’m also a radio host and producer, which is another way to reach people through music. I host the weekday afternoon classical program on Philadelphia’s WRTI 90.1 FM, from 2 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. It requires learning and synthesizing an enormous amount of music, then sharing that knowledge with a broad audience in 30- to 60-second segments. It’s great for structuring and focusing my thoughts in a different way. I try not only to tell a story, but to create context for people. You won’t just hear, “That was the London Philharmonic with so-and-so conducting the music of Beethoven,” because I don’t think that’s what listeners want anymore.

Could you talk about your arts pathway to where you are now?

I began as a violinist at age three and always sang. By the time I got to college, I was focused on playing in a symphony orchestra—that was my main goal. But I was also really invested in singing, so I initially enrolled as a double major in violin and voice performance. The University of Michigan has a robust dual-degree program pairing academics and the arts, and I was increasingly compelled by the relationship between words and music, so I put away my violin and became a double major in English literature and voice performance instead.

When I graduated, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so I got a master’s degree in choral conducting. When I still didn’t quite know, I moved to New York—as you do, when you’re young and have no idea how hard it’s going to be. If I’d known, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But I started getting gigs, doing the work, and taught a few summers at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Even then, teaching was part of the story. I really liked working with high school students—it was gratifying, though it wasn’t my main path forward at that time.

I started traveling a lot and gradually built a professional performing career. During those early New York years, I also had a year-long stint as a visiting professor at the University of Utah. Then, when my husband and I moved to the UK, I started working with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists and other top European ensembles. That was one of those formative experiences that changed the direction of my musical life. I did four recordings with EBS and John Eliot, along with a lot of touring with various groups. Working with musicians of that caliber was extraordinary. There is no substitute for that kind of artistic environment. It was also incredibly affirming to perform for audiences who listen in such a different way.

While we were in the UK, I taught for a year at the University of Edinburgh. After we moved back to the States, I taught in the summer Voice and Opera Program for high school students at Interlochen. So when we moved to Pennsylvania ten years ago, the artist-in-residence position at Penn felt like a natural fit.

Do you have favorite composers?

No—I mean, there are just too many.

Right now I’m obsessed with a piece by Max Reger (an early 20th-century German composer), Der geigende Eremit, that was inspired by a painting of the same name by the symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin. I go down rabbit holes. This spring I’ve been deeply immersed in the life and work of Ina Boyle, an early 20th-century Irish composer. I’m currently focused on early 20th-century female composers because I continue to be struck by how absent they remain in the classical canon—not just the composers themselves, but their music, which is beautiful and tuneful and has so much to say. Broadly speaking, this generation of women has been largely overlooked, even amid current efforts to expand the canon.

There’s a fair amount of attention and research on women composers from earlier centuries, the 16th through the 19th—not as robust as it should be, but growing. Contemporary female composers have received some recognition within the radio and larger performance world too. It’s still not enough, but it’s more than this particular group of early-20th-century women has received. One of my first major projects was performing and recording the complete works of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, a seventeenth-century cloistered nun whose music was only beginning to be discovered at the time. Immersing myself in this extraordinary repertoire opened a world I didn’t even know existed and began my determination to expand the canon. So: Ina Boyle, Irish 20th-century composer, gorgeous music. If you give her a listen, I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

Can you offer an outline of the work you do at Penn?

I have three main roles. The first is artist-in-residence, where I get to develop performance projects that grow out of research and historical inquiry. I present concerts on campus, both on the Kislak Series and through Penn Live Arts. Those have included a recital of Alma Mahler’s vocal music, a program of Salamone Rossi’s vocal and instrumental music, and a recital on solitude for voice and lute during the Covid lockdown, to name a few. The Alma Mahler program grew out of the Kislak Center’s special collections at Penn Libraries. Working with manuscripts of her songs and reading her diary led me to think differently about the artistic world she inhabited. The recital became an exploration of those relationships and influences, including performances of some of her songs from the collection.

Then there’s my dual role as music director of the Penn Collegium Musicum, a small, select vocal ensemble focused on early music (pre-1800). It’s a great group. There are students from undergrad through postdoc, plus a few faculty members, which makes it a wonderful way of bringing people together across campus. We rehearse once a week and put on two concerts a year.

The Opera and Music Theater Workshop is another ensemble I direct. I founded the Workshop in 2019 to give students an opportunity to explore musical theater and operatic repertoire in a more formalized setting. The idea was to create something open to anyone, since music theater is often a more familiar, easier on-ramp for students. The course is centered on text and communication and focused on developing effective singer-actors. We’ve done a number of semi-staged performances and one fully staged production since 2019, including a special interdisciplinary course in collaboration with Dr. Mauro Calcagno in the Music Department, supported by a Sachs Arts Course Development Grant that integrated historical scholarship with performance practice. That resulted in the production of Orpheus Uncovered, a retelling of the Orpheus myth through 100 years of operatic repertoire, which I produced, directed, and created for the students.

Last, but certainly not least, is my work with students at Platt House, which brings me enormous joy because I get to support work they’ve built themselves. I come in and work with students who have formed their own groups and created their own arrangements of songs. They rehearse and put the pieces together, then bring me in at different points. I can help with anything from rehearsal prep to final refinements the week before a show, working with individual students on solos, sometimes on choreography, sometimes on intonation. I’ve taught people one-on-one, worked with small groups, and held master classes for them. They’re remarkable students, and part of my role is helping them recognize possibilities they may not yet see for themselves.

I try to offer master classes that are genuinely useful — like one called “Singing Is Communicating.” It sounds obvious, but it isn’t always, because sometimes smart people can get in their own heads.

I can’t imagine.

(Laughing) So yes — that’s a lot of what I do. I help talented students get where they need to go.

What are you currently excited about — what do you want to highlight for people?

I have an upcoming performance this autumn called Handel at Home. As I mentioned, my research interest is women in music. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the United States, but female composer representation in the Colonial era is pretty thin—there are very few known colonial-era female composers at all. So rather than looking for a woman who wrote the music, I took my inspiration from where the performance is actually happening: the Powel House in Society Hill. Elizabeth Powel was one of the great hostesses of the time here in Philadelphia, and the performance will take place in the very room where she hosted, which is mind-blowing to me.

I wanted to reimagine one of Powel’s salon evenings—the kind where the founders, the signers of the Declaration, and power brokers of the era gathered and exchanged ideas. The program centers on the music of Handel, who was hugely popular in Colonial Philadelphia. But what interested me most was the experience of coming together as these colonial women did: they created spaces where politics, culture, and ideas were exchanged. The project became a way of imagining one of those gatherings in the room where it might have actually happened. If you squint, you can almost imagine Washington in that corner, maybe Benjamin Franklin by the window. The space carries that feeling of history, and I’m really excited to share the experience with the audience and my colleagues performing with me.

What’s next?

I’ll keep blending the roles I have at Penn, and the radio work too. They’re not as different as they might seem. Whether I’m working with students, preparing a performance, or speaking to people on the radio, I’m usually trying to help people connect with the music and with each other in a meaningful way. I’m always looking to be part of creative and intellectually stimulating work. When you see that light bulb go on for people, that’s where it’s at. If I can introduce students or audiences to something they haven’t known before—a concept or a composer—that’s what I love. I’m grateful to be here, to have wonderful colleagues to work with and amazing students who are hungry for all of it… it’s a gift.