Notable for putting her outstanding technique in the service of complex emotions, as well as her winning Midwestern way, coloratura soprano Joyce DiDonato was born in Prairie Village, KS, in 1969. An aspiring pop singer in high school, she studied music education in college before even imagining herself the Grammy-winning opera superstar she would become. Inspired by a 1990 telecast of Don Giovanni, she studied at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts and in programs sponsored by Santa Fe’s and Houston’s opera companies. She sang with regional operas after reinventing her vocal style in the mid-’90s, and in 2001, she made her La Scala debut as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola. She has subsequently specialized in Romantic-era opera and Baroque recitals. While performing as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia in 2009, DiDonato famously slipped on the Royal Opera House stage, forcing her to perform the remainder of the run from a wheelchair. She won her first Best Classical Solo Album Grammy for 2011’s Diva, Divo, a collection of arias for both genders. In 2016, she won another Grammy for her live recital with pianist Antonio Pappano, Joyce & Tony - Live at Wigmore Hall, and a third in 2020 for the eclectic Songplay, which set Baroque arias to jazz and tango rhythms. In 2022, DiDonato channeled her environmental activism into EDEN, a wild garden of song involving Mahler, Charles Ives, the poems of Emily Dickinson, and more.