Rebecca Comerford
Vocalist, writer, and director Rebecca Comerford, is an award winning artist who has been hailed by Variety Magazine as a "standout character actress," "the future of lyric theatre in America" by Classical Voice Magazine, and "brilliant" by the Commercial Appeal, Memphis. Rebecca's voice and original compositions have been felt in concert halls, theaters and movie screens across America and Europe.
As an actress she has appeared in various award winning features, most recently as the bar singer in legendary Iranian artist and film maker Shirin Neshat's, Land of Dreams, for which she also wrote original songs and compositions as part of the soundtrack. Land of Dreams made worldwide theatrical release in Spring of 2022 through Vertical Entertainment and premiered at the Venice International Film Festival to rave reviews.
As an opera director, she has received praise for her interpretations of classic operas such as Hans Krasa’s Brundibar, which she adapted for opera Santa Barbara in 2019. As the artistic director of Ojai Youth Opera, the first autonomous youth Opera Company on the West Coast, Rebecca was responsible for conceiving and composing the premiere workshop of Nightingale and the Tower, an intergenerational, electronic chamber opera that explores the intersection of nature and technology for children and the cautionary dangers of screen time in the modern world. Nightingale and the Tower is currently being adapted into a feature animated film through Palodeon Pictures, the production company she co-founded with her husband, director and producer, Sol Tryon, in 2021.
As a concert soloist she has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall/Lincoln Center, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Symphony Space, Alhambra Theater Spain, Spoleto Music Festival, Italy to name a few. She was awarded the top Lotte Lenya Prize through the Kurt Weill Foundation from opera legend Teresa Stratas and Metropolitan Opera conductor Julius Rudel for her interpretations of Kurt Weill's music and is a frequent cabaret performer, often appearing as a regular at New York's famed Cafe Sabarsky. Her musical sensibilities create a bridge between the worlds of classical music, cabaret, jazz and folk, landing at the intersection of something both new and nostalgic.
Comerford is a member of BMI as well as SAG/AFTRA, Actors Equity and Tim Robbins' Actors Gang, based in Culver City California. She holds a Bachelors Degree in Vocal Performance from Eastman School of Music and a Masters of Music where she studied in the studio of Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music faculty chair, Edith Bers. She is a proud native of Maine and the youngest of four children from a large Irish family wherein she learned to sing and tell stories that were steeped in legend and folklore.