Margaret (Peggy) Kohler

Part-Time Faculty
Department of Music

Hailed by the New Yorker as “theatrically and musically expert”, the New York Times as a “strong, fluent singer”, the Village Voice as “a powerful singer” and locally, by the Columbus Dispatch, as a “stellar performer”, soprano Margaret Kohler has been delighting audiences from Alaska to Europe with her intensity, contagious energy, and expertise in a wide ranging repertoire. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory and College, and Interlochen Arts Academy, Ms. Kohler has also been a Young Artist at Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Opera Theater, Aldeburgh Festival (UK), San Diego Opera and Utah Festival Opera Young Artist Programs.

Kohler won the International Opera Singer’s Competition in New York City, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions for San Diego District and was a semi-finalist in the Met’s Western Region National Council Auditions in Los Angeles. She has worked extensively with music luminaries such as Jan DeGaetani, Lucy Shelton, Doris Yarick-Cross, Richard Miller, Shirlee Emmons, and Phyllis Curtin and has collaborated closely with contemporary composers Samuel Adler, Philip Glass, Oliver Knussen, Bright Sheng, John Corigliano, to name a few. She has recorded for the Naxos label and has been featured on television in a PBS performance of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” at the Wexner Center.

Career highlights include multiple world premieres and over 20 operatic roles and 25 oratorios with performing organizations including the San Diego Symphony, the New York Chamber Ensemble, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Bakken Trio and Principal Members of Minnesota Orchestra, Eastman Philharmonia, Mannheim Orchestra, Opera Columbus, Intermountain Opera, San Diego Opera, Toledo Opera, Opera Delaware, and Utah Festival Orchestra. Her New York Recital Debut was at Carnegie Hall after winning the International Opera Singers Competition.

Ms. Kohler has taught Private Voice and Pedagogy classes at Otterbein University, Kenyon College and Montana State University. Specific pedagogical classes she has taught to date are: Vocal Pedagogy, English, German, French, and Italian Diction, Voice Class for Music Educators, Voice Class for Non-Majors, 20th Century Vocal Music and Introduction to Opera.

From crab fishing off the coast of Kodiak, Alaska (her home) to Carnegie Hall, Ms. Kohler has had a unique path to her Operatic career. Because of this, she has a great passion for bringing Opera/Classical singing to diverse audiences everywhere. While serving on the Intermountain Opera Board in Bozeman, MT she launched the tradition of the “Opera Run” (Opera singers in full costume serenading runners at the water stations) to help sponsor and advertise upcoming Operas (currently in its 11th year!). As a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters in Columbus, she has sung Opera in inner city elementary school classrooms. Her greatest joy in music is seeing kids light up when they hear the power of the human voice through Opera, the excitement is palpable!