SOS welcomes our newest Advisory Board member

“It will be a great privilege for me to serve the children of SOS through participation on the Global Advisory Board. SOS has built path-breaking and vital models for the wellbeing of children and communities worldwide. I look forward to connecting with others who value this essential work, from monthly sponsors of one child to corporate donors who can partner with SOS on major community projects.” – Patrice Michaels

Composer and performer Patrice Michaels is a long-time supporter of SOS Children’s Villages and centers her professional work around themes of social justice.

The breadth of Michaels’ interests is fully expressed in her project, Notorious RBG in Song, a salute to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cedille Records) released in 2017 that has since become a live stage show. It is “…an engrossing, episodic portrait of the legal thinker, wife, mother and feminist icon” (WQXR), performed to date in Los Angeles, the Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Philadelphia and at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. “RESOLVED, Songs of Women’s Suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment” premiered in August filmed by NBC for the National Constitution Center, featuring mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Michaels’s choral work “Refuge,” debuted at the Kennedy Center in July 2019 for the Serenade Festival. Projects such as Divas of Mozart’s Day and Intersection: Jazz Meets Classical Song have earned Michaels praise as “a formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker) possessing “a voice that is light, rich and flexible” (Opera News).

Patrice’s singing has been featured on more than 25 albums, including the Decca, Neos, Albany and Amadis labels, and 14 releases as an artist for Cedille Records. Her eclectic nature is expressed through recent recordings such as La vie est une parade (Cedille), featuring music of Satie, Britten and Tailleferre with the Czech National Symphony, and the work of contemporary composer Laurie Altman on Sonic Migrations (Neos) and On Course, a solo recording of the composer’s work for the Albany record label. Patrice has been featured with the Shanghai and Czech National Symphonies, in concerts for the Festival of Contemporary Music in Havana and the Maverick Festival, and has appeared with St. Louis, Atlanta and Minnesota Orchestras, among many others. 

Patrice Michaels holds BAs in Music and Theater from Pomona College, an MFA in Voice from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and a certificate from the Music Theatre Studio Ensemble at The Banff Centre. Former Professor of Music at Lawrence University’s Conservatory of Music, Michaels now serves as Director of Vocal Studies at The University of Chicago and on the faculty of the Voice/Opera Program in Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.   

Learn more about our Global Advisory Board.