“…a terribly gifted lady, a marvelous singer …and she can act!”

Darlene Wiley,
Sarah & Earnest Butler Opera Center

Music as a science

Alecia is an advocate for new music and devotee of curiously unconventional works.

In February 2023, Alecia rejoined Odyssey Opera and Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) for the East Coast premiere of Tobias Picker’s opera, Awakenings, and the subsequent world premiere recording, released on BMOP/sound.

Alecia sings Dame d’Honneur on the 2022 Odyssey Opera release, Camille Saint-Saëns: Henry VIII, which presents the most complete recording of the opera since its 1883 premiere. She is proud to be on the 2021 Odyssey Opera recording which captures the United States premiere performance of Charles Gounod’s La Reine de Saba. Alecia is also a member of the Odyssey Opera ensemble heard on the 2020 world premiere recording, Norman Dello Joio: The Trial at Rouen, released on the BMOP/sound label and GRAMMY®-nominated for Best Opera Recording.

In September 2022 she performed the collective U.S. premiere of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s complete operatic output in “Troika” with Odyssey Opera. She made her solo debut with Odyssey Opera as Solo Voice in the 2018 performance of Arthur Honegger’s dramatic oratorio Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher.

In 2014, Alecia prepared with author Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus, The Starless Sea) in advance of the premiere studio recording of Carson Cooman’s Flax-Golden Tales, in which Alecia plays the Storyteller alongside the instrumentalists of CLARET under Jeffrey Grossman. The innovative chamber work, commissioned by the New Juilliard Ensemble, musically amplifies Morgenstern’s flash fiction characters.

The same year, Alecia sang the world premiere of Michael Hoffer’s nine-movement Celestial Hierarchy for vocal quartet, trombone, and laptopist at Texas State University’s Performing Arts Center.

In Contemporaries | Contemporary, Alecia performed texts of English Metaphysical poet John Donne as set to music by his 16th Century contemporaries, and placed in world premiere compositions by Alecia’s modern-day peers, including Four Poems by John Donne by National Opera Association award recipient and Fulbright scholar Dan Shore, and “The Computation”, “To Mr. B.B.” and “The Broken Heart” as composed by organist and author Leonardo Ciampa.

At Afternoon Concerts Boston, she presented the concert premiere of fALATIMI, the thirteen-minute, chamber-style score to award-winning film Fate Scores for which she sang in the original soundtrack recording, under the direction of composer Christian Coleman.

Alecia performed the world premiere of a trio composed by MIT Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Music and sarodist George Ruckert in honor of Charles Marstiller Vest, then-President of MIT, at Gray House, and presented the Boston and New England premieres of The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld by Bryant Kong at MIT’s Elizabeth Parks Killian Hall.

Alecia has appeared as a concert soloist with: Cantemus in performances of Vivaldi’s Magnificat; Music on Norway Pond and Andover Choral Society in performances of Carmina Burana; The Old South Church in Boston; Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble; and the Choir of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

Other roles on the opera stage include: the gold-encrusted Muse of Music in Boston Lyric Opera’s Barbe & Doucet production of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann under the baton of Keith Lockhart; and the Lioness in Odyssey Opera’s lauded production of Arthur Sullivan’s The Zoo at the Huntington Theatre. Her professional debut as an ululator came in the 2016 Boston premiere of Street Requiem under the direction of Dr. Jonathon Welch.


“Dieu vous gard’” • Darius Milhaud

“Dieu vous gard’” from Chansons de Ronsard
by Darius Milhaud
Brendon Shapiro, piano


“The Litanie XII: The Virgins” • Dan Shore

“The Litanie XII: The Virgins” from Four Poems by John Donne
by Dan Shore
Brendon Shapiro, piano


“Erstes Lied” • Richard Strauss

“Erstes Lied” from Drei Lieder der Ophelia
by Richard Strauss
Brendon Shapiro, piano


“Pippa’s Song” • Ned Rorem

“Pippa’s Song”
by Ned Rorem
Brendon Shapiro, piano

“Alecia Batson was one of the hits of the show as Sister Mary Rose, giving a performance that showed her gifts for comic timing and dead-on characterization.”

Monica Bauer
Playwright & Author
The Diet Monologues

Select Solo Engagement

Photo | Kathy Wittman of Ball Square Films for Odyssey Opera’s staging of C. W. Glucks’s Paride ed Elena.

Photo | Kathy Wittman of Ball Square Films for Odyssey Opera’s staging of C. W. Glucks’s Paride ed Elena.