A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, soprano Dr. Donna Mitchell-Cox is a featured soloist in oratorio, opera, and recitals both stateside and abroad. Dr. Cox’s most celebrated works are her concert performances. She has performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus and Magnificat; Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Theresienmesse; Bach’s Magnificat; Mozart’s Requiem, Vesperae K. 339, and Mass in c minor, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Rutter’s Masses, the Brahms Requiem, Haydn’s Creation and Seasons, Handel’s Messiah, and multiple Schubert and Bach cantatas. In Oklahoma City with Canterbury Choir, she performed with Dave Brubeck in his mass, To Hope.
Operatic roles performed are Leila in Bizet’s Pearl Fishers, Belinda and Second Woman in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Giulietta in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Lucia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, and Carolina in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto.
Early in her career, Dr. Cox toured extensively, performing recitals in Great Britain and Germany. Under the tutelage of her teacher Ilieva Totev in Trier, Germany, she mastered Mozart’s operatic repertoire and Lied. She has performed recitals for the Oklahoma Arts Council and the Mid-America Alliance rosters. Over the span of her career, her recital palate has evolved to include new music such as Gilles's To The Seasons for soprano, piano, and french horn, performed with Kayla Paulk and Dr. Eldon Matlick at the International Horn Society Symposium in Memphis. She performs a compilation of songs with poetry by Langston Hughes that she premiered performed with poet Honoree Jeffers and Deutsche Oper Berlin vocal coach and colleague, Lorne Richstone.
In musical theatre, playwright Tyrone Stanley heard Donna’s voice and cast her in the role of Lyla in his work, Soul on Fire. She has performed the role in the Midtown International Theatre Festival off Broadway, the Atlanta Theatre Festival, and made her debut at the Kennedy Center in July 2014 with the cast of Soul on Fire.
Dr. Cox is an alumna of the Eastman School of Music, where she earned B.M. and M.M. degrees in Voice Performance. In May 2014, she completed her Doctor of Education in the College Teaching of Music at the Teachers College of Columbia University. Her research focuses on the process an applied teacher and singer encounter when problematic articulatory issues surface singing foreign languages. Donna is currently an Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of Oklahoma. She is the Founder, in May 2015, of the University of Oklahoma London Summer School of Voice (LSSV). The purpose of the program is to immerse students in London’s culture for a three-week intensive program. LSSV is supported by President Boren’s initiative for each student to a study abroad while attending OU.