Email: alidelaguardia (at) guerillaopera (dot) org

Phone: 617-286-6723 (w)

Aliana de la Guardia is a Cuban-American soprano vocalist, arts leader, producer, and voice teacher. Specializing in new music and opera, she collaborates with opera companies, chamber ensembles, and varied artists nationwide. She is a co-founding artist and Artistic Director of Guerilla Opera, half of Bahué, a voice and percussion duo, and a PARMA Recordings Artist. She is the owner of the Dirty Paloma Voice Studio where she teaches private voice lessons, as well as at the Community Music School of Springfield, with speaking engagements at institutions, initiatives, conventions, and convenings nationwide.

Aliana de la Guardia is a Massachusetts-based Cuban-American soprano vocalist, arts leader, producer, and voice teacher. Specializing in new music and opera, she has enjoyed collaborations with opera companies, chamber ensembles, and artists of varied disciplines throughout New York, Massachusetts and the nationwide, and guest starred on ABC’s “Body of Proof.” She is a PARMA Recordings Artist and is also featured on commercial releases through BMOP Sound and others. A co-founding artist and Artistic Director of Guerilla Opera, she has premiered many new operas over 16 years. She is half of the voice and percussion duo, Bahué, which generates a repertoire of new music from Latinx composers. She has participated in arts and non-profit leadership programs from Philanthropy Massachusetts, Essex County Community Foundation, OPERA America, Double Edge Theatre, and is on the OPERA America Membership Council. She is the owner of the Dirty Paloma Voice Studio and also teaches private voice lessons at the Community Music School of Springfield, formerly treasurer of the Granite State chapter of NATS. She has been a guest artist/lecturer at colleges, universities, and conservatories throughout the country and with the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Regional Dance Development Initiative, and with speaking engagements at Washington National Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Singers Resource, and Classical Singer and National Opera Association conventions.

Aliana de la Guardia is a Cuban-American artist who enjoys a multifaceted career as a soprano vocalist, entrepreneur, actor, and educator.

An ensemble member, co-founding artist and now Artistic Director of Guerilla Opera, Aliana has 16 years of experience at the helm of this artist-led performing ensemble. As an active artist and administrator for the ensemble, she has produced numerous newly commissioned operas with roles tailor-made for her ferocious stage presence.

Recent projects include the premiere of Hannah Lash’s Beowulf, in which she enraptured audiences with her “beautiful fragility and strength” (I Care If You Listen), the commercial recording of Loose, Wet, Perforated by Nicholas Vines on Navona Records, an evocative opera in which de la Guardia “struts her stuff” (Opera News), and recently producing and staring in the experimental film, Ofelia’s Life Dream by Caroline Louise Miller, heralded by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as a “veritable feast of drama, film, and music.”

In addition to the creation and performance of new opera she has also created The Guerilla Underground, a virtual speakeasy experience and performance series that explores the operatic and centers underrepresented artists and creators of new works. She also oversees Guerilla Opera’s professional development programs for artists with the express goal of building a national community of artists focused on the creation of new works.

Her work as a Latinx arts leader advocates inclusivity and multicultural collaboration. She leads Guerilla Opera’s initiative to bring new multisensory and operatic experiences to the Visually Impaired community of Boston.

With accumulated experience in arts administration, from company operations to production management to fundraising and grant writing, she has received recent accolades that put her at the forefront of the next generation of arts leadership. She was selected to participate in the 2022 Nonprofit Learning Institute by Bank of America and Philanthropy Massachusetts, a competitive program that selects only 20 nonprofit organizations from a broad cross-section of the nonprofit sector in Massachusetts, as well as the Creative County Initiative “Changemakers” a leadership support program of the Essex County Community Foundation, which selects a cohort of ten cultural leaders within Essex County, MA.

In 2020 she was selected to participate in the OPERA America Mentorship Program for Women in Opera, paired with Lee Anne Myslewski, Vice President of Opera and Classical Programming at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA. This highly competitive Mentorship Program was created in 2018 to help further the goals of the OPERA America Women’s Opera Network, advancing gender parity in the opera field, and identifying the most promising up and coming female-identifying leaders in the opera industry.

She also received a Public Art Learning Fund grant award from the New England Foundation for the Arts in 2020 to engage in a custom-tailored mentorship with Double Edge Theatre shadowing producing director Adam Bright and other members of the ensemble. The Public Art Learning Fund provides grants to support professional development opportunities for New England artists to strengthen their public art practices.

Panorama Boston writes: “De la Guardia has already made a significant impact on the music industry through her accomplishments to date.”

As an active soprano vocalist, Aliana de la Guardia has garnered acclaim for her “dazzling flights of virtuosity” (Gramophone) in “vocally fearless” performances that are “fizzing with theatrical commitment” (The Boston Globe).

A graduate of the Boston Conservatory and consummate interpreter of new classical concert repertoire, she has enjoyed collaborations with many ensembles featuring today’s most eminent composers including Scenes from a Novel and Kafka Fragments with violinist Gabriela Diaz by György Kurtág, Aspen Suite by Salvatore Sciarrino and Nenia: the Death of Orpheus by Harrison Birtwistle with the Ludovico Ensemble and conducted by Jeffery Means, and the world premiere of Earth Songs by Ronald Perrera with New England Philharmonic.

Some favorite new operatic roles include the Doctor in Persona by Keeril Makin, based on the Ingmar Bergman film, under the music direction of Evan Ziporyn with Beth Morrison Projects, and the Voice in Oration by Line Tjönoi with the Center for Contemporary Opera under the music direction of Lidiya Yankovskaya.

She has enjoyed additional collaborations featuring today’s most eminent composers with American Lyric Theater, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston New Music Festival, Dinosaur Annex, Enigma Chamber Opera, Ludovico Ensemble, Monadnock Music, New Gallery Concert Series, the PARMA Festival, Transient Canvas, and Winsor Music, among others.

As a recording artist, she can be heard singing the title role of “Loose” on Guerilla Opera’s Loose, Wet, Perforated by Nicholas P. Vines, and in compilations of music by composers Alan Beeler, Gordon Eagle, Carl Vollrath, and Marvin J. Carlton on the PARMA Recordings labels of Navona and Ravello Records, on BMOP Sound singing lead roles in the opera Cymbeline by Charles Fussell under the music direction of Gil Rose, as well as on independent labels featuring music by composers Andy Vores, Oliver Caplan, and of Curtis K. Hughes in the lead role of Sarah Palin on Guerilla Opera’s Say It Ain’t So, Joe and in the compilation album Danger Garden.

The Arts Fuse lauds de la Guardia’s sound as “lovely, natural” and “as clear and powerful as grain alcohol.”

A skilled actor and theater artist who specializes in new music, Aliana is especially fit for premiering new operas, genre-bending performance art, devised works, video and film projects, and intimate performances such as with Mountain Time Arts “Stand by Snow: Chapter One” and the multidisciplinary work of Atlas UNLIMITED. She has also been featured on television guest-starring on ABC’s “Body of Proof.”

As an educator, she has been a featured artist/lecturer at Harvard University, Lawrence Conservatory, Vermont College of Fine Arts, University of Memphis, University of Maine, Hubbard Hall Opera Theater, the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project Regional Dance Development Initiative, and was the treasurer of Granite State National Association of Teachers of Singing.

Other guest speaking engagements include roundtable discussions sponsored by Washington National Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Singers Resource, and the Classical Singer and National Opera Association conventions.

Active in her local community, she is the owner and founder of Dirty Paloma Voice Studio in Haverhill, MA and served on the 2020 Haverhill Multicultural Festival planning committee.