Music like Joyce DiDonato

Joyce DiDonato (née Flaherty; born February 13, 1969) is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.

She has performed with many of the world's leading opera companies and orchestras, and won multiple awards including the 2012 and 2016 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo.

Joyce Flaherty was born in Prairie Village, Kansas in 1969, the sixth of seven children in an Irish-American family. Her father, Donald, was a self-employed architect who designed houses in the area. One of her sisters, Amy Hetherington, was a music teacher at St. Ann Catholic School, which Joyce and her siblings attended. She later went to Bishop Miege High School where she sang in musicals. She entered Wichita State University (WSU) in 1988 to study vocal music education, because she was initially more interested in teaching high school vocal music and musical theatre. She became interested in opera after seeing a PBS telecast of Don Giovanni, and then, in her junior year, when she was cast in a school production of Die Fledermaus.