Hailed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a “beautifully voiced singer-actor" and by the American Record Guide as a mezzo-soprano of “gorgeous expressive singing” Raquel Winnica Young was a finalist of the Vocal Art Song Discovery Series DC, two-time winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Artist Competition and a finalist for The American Prize in Art Song and Oratorio.
Raquel is equally comfortable in the world of early music, chamber opera, contemporary opera, chamber music and oratorio. Her career has taken her to concert halls and opera houses across the Americas and Europe such as Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires, Teatro Nacional Sucre of Quito, Severance Hall (Cleveland), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Casa da Música (Porto), Teatro Comunale Claudio Abbado (Ferrara).
As a soloist of oratorio and chamber music Raquel has also participated in major international festivals, like Bach Festival in (Lausanne), Festival Martha Argerich, (Buenos Aires), Festival Llao Llao, (Río Negro), Festival Camino de las Estancias, (Córdoba) ; and closer to home at the Strings Music Festival, (Steamboat), Colorado.
Specializing in Spanish and Latin-American baroque music, with a deep interest in the influence and transformation of the Spanish language and its origins across the centuries, Raquel has performed with numerous early music ensembles. In the US, she appeared in concert with Chatham Baroque, The Newberry Consort, The Rose Ensemble, and Apollo’s Fire. She recently appeared in an online project about the life and music of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz with Les Délices, a baroque ensemble from Cleveland.
Recent performances are her debut with Kentucky Opera in the acting role of "El Duende" in the operita Maria de Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla, and her debut as the alto soloist of Messiah with Atlanta Baroque under the baton of its artistic director Julie Andrijeski.
In the world of opera she has performed title roles across the globe in productions of Cosí fan Tutte, L'enfant et les sortilèges, Frida, Ainadamar, Medeamaterial, María de Buenos Aires, Hansel und Gretel, Armide, Orfeo and Euridice, Dido and Aeneas, Winter's Tale (a baroque pastiche) and a concert version of composer Efrain Amaya's opera Constellations.
Raquel serves as voice faculty and as the stage director at the international music festival FEMUSC, in Santa Catarina, Brazil - in the early music program, where she was recognized as the "teacher revelation" for her production of Marriage of Fígaro in January of 2022. She is coming back in January of 2023 to stage "Orpheo's Truths" where she will be directing Monteverdi's and Gluck's Orfeo as well as performing a program of Spanish Baroque music with musicologist, conductor, organist and harpsichordist Luis Antonio González Marín.
Born in Córdoba, Argentina, Ms. Winnica Young holds a degree from the Instituto de Arte del Teatro Colon and an Artist Diploma from Duquesne University. She is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Advance Studies in Theatre through Universidad Nacional La Rioja UNIR.
As a pedagogue, Ms. Winnica Young is Adjunct Faculty in Voice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches Applied Voice and Vocal Repertoire and Literature. She resides in Pittsburgh with her husband Lenny Young and their dog Luna.
