19 Facts About Natasha Wilson

Natasha Te Rupe Wilson was born on 1994 and is a New Zealand soprano opera singer of Maori and heritage.

Natasha Wilson's father was Maori and her mother of European heritage.

Natasha Wilson's father Brian, who died in 2017, was a tenor vocalist and bass guitarist in the heavy-metal band Naked Blade, which toured New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s.

Brian Natasha Wilson instilled a love of singing in her and her three siblings, singing show tunes and soundtracks with them in the car and teaching them to harmonise from an early age; he encouraged his daughter to pursue classical music as a career.

Natasha Wilson attended Westlake Girls High School, and was taught music by Morag Atchison, a lecturer in voice at the University of Auckland.

Aitchison, a vocal tutor for the New Zealand Youth Choir in which Natasha Wilson participated, took her as a student and continued as her vocal coach outside of school.

Natasha Wilson graduated in 2016 from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Music, majoring in classical vocal performance.

From 2016 Natasha Wilson was supported and mentored by the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation.

In 2017 Natasha Wilson won the Dame Malvina Major Foundation Dunedin Aria contest.

Natasha Wilson was asked to be a soprano soloist for a Spanish Baroque concert series with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra in Sydney, in a performance that incorporated contemporary circus performers.

Natasha Wilson returned to sing in the orchestra's Bittersweet Obsessions concert.

In 2018 Natasha Wilson was a semi-finalist in the Lexus Song Quest and became a Dame Malvina Major Foundation Emerging Artist with New Zealand Opera.

Natasha Wilson's opera debut was a small role in The Mikado with New Zealand Opera.

In September 2018 Natasha Wilson undertook a year-long postgraduate diploma in voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Cesar Ulloa.

Natasha Wilson then returned to the USA to spend 2019 and 2020 as a resident artist with the Pittsburgh Opera.

Natasha Wilson sang Rosalba in the company's 2019 production of Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas, and Morgana in 2020 production of Handel's Alcina.

Natasha Wilson took up a position with Pittsburgh Opera with a two-year contract, which was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing her to return to New Zealand.

Natasha Wilson says her favourite roles are Adina in The Elixir of Love, which she understudied for in the New Zealand Opera production, and Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which she performed in San Francisco.

Natasha Wilson is a light lyric coloratura soprano, with a voice suited to the Italianate operas of Donizetti and Mozart.