RAVEN MCMILLON

upcoming wco appearance

Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito (3/1/25)

Praised for her “crisp, silvery tone” (Callum John Blackmore – Parterre Box) and “fiery coloratura” (Sherry Cheng – Arts and Culture Texas), soprano Raven McMillon is a native of Baltimore, MD and a 2021 Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition.

In the 2024-2025 season, Raven makes her role debut as Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito at Washington Concert Opera and joins Minnesota Opera for a workshop of B.E. Boykin’s My Name is Florence, a chamber opera based on the life of Florence Price, in the role of LoLo, Florence Price’s daughter. She also joins Fort Worth Symphony as a cover in the premiere of Jake Heggie’s Earth Song 2. Last season, Raven joined both Nashville Symphony and the U.S. Naval Academy for Handel’s Messiah, sang Melissa in Amadigi di Gaula with Ars Lyrica Houston, and covered Peter in The Snowy Day at Portland Opera.  

In the 2022-2023 season, Raven made house debuts at New Orleans opera as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Austin Opera as Johanna in Sweeney Todd, and Welsh National Opera as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. She also sang Gilda in Rigoletto with the Rochester Philharmonic, returned to Cincinnati Opera as the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, and performed on the fall 2022 dates of a recital tour featuring Damien Sneed’s Our Song, Our Story – an evening of music highlighting some of the world's most well-known operatic arias, art songs and spirituals, alongside colleagues Raehann Bryce-Davis and composer/pianist Damien Sneed.

In the 2021-2022 season, she returned to Houston Grand Opera as a second year studio artist as Frasquita in Carmen, Peter in Joel Thompson’s The Snowy Day, and Papagena in The Magic Flute. She also made role debuts as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with Des Moines Metro Opera and Musetta in La Boheme with Cincinnati Opera, and made her house and role debut at Opera Philadelphia as Gilda in Rigoletto. In the summer of 2021, Ms. McMillon joined Cincinnati Opera as Frasquita in the company’s outdoor presentation of Carmen, also making her role debut as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at Opera Steamboat.

During the 2020-2021 season, she made her house debut at Houston Grand Opera in scenes from Carmen (Frasquita) and L’elisir d’amore (Adina) in the Studio Showcase. She was also seen in the HGO Digital season as Rona Richards in The Impresario, Peter in The Making of The Snowy Day documentary, and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel. Ms. McMillon also performed as a soloist in the Giving Voice concert as well as the HGO Studio Recitals. In 2020, Ms. McMillon also collaborated with Lyric Opera of the North as Trish in the company’s chapter in The Decameron Coalition’s “Tales from a Safe Distance.”

Other opera credits include La Princesse in L’enfant et les sortilèges (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra); Adele in Die Fledermaus (Carnegie Mellon); Goldie in Goldie B. Locks and the Three Singing Bears (Pittsburgh Festival Opera); and Linfea in La Calisto (CCM). Ms. McMillon has also workshopped new roles such as Mary in Faye Chiao’s The Secret Codes of Mary Bowser and Lucy in Tobias Picker’s Awakenings. Ms. McMillon received her MM Vocal Performance at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music and her BFA in Vocal Performance at Carnegie Mellon University.