Praised by The New York Times as “bright, active, and fastidiously musical” and by Opera News as having “a golden sound,” New Orleans native Sarah Jane McMahon performs with the world's top opera companies and symphony orchestras. Recent highlights include appearances at the prestigious Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, Monica in The Medium and Micaela in Carmen with New Orleans Opera and Opera Idaho, and concert performances with The Colorado Symphony, The Williamsburg Symphony, and Heartlands Festival Orchestra. Sarah Jane has appeared with the Los Angeles Opera, Dallas Opera, Arizona Opera, Virginia Opera, the Washington Concert Opera, Des Moines Opera, and Bard Summerscape Festival among many others. Concert credits include the San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Santo Domingo Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Cleveland Pops, Canadian Opera Orchestra, the Portland Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Midland Odessa Symphony, Amarillo Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Winston Salem Symphony, and concerts opposite Placido Domingo. With the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center, she performed as Galatea in Acis and Galatea, earning her the coveted Kolozsvár Award, in Purcell’s King Arthur, and as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance for which The New York Times called her “the most polished and flexible singer in the cast” and “a deft comic actress.”

Selected by Maestro Placido Domingo to join the Los Angeles Opera, she sang with the celebrated tenor as the Fifth Flower Maiden in Parsifal, Naiad in Ariadne auf Naxos, and The Milliner in Der Rosenkavalier. Sarah Jane has performed with Bard SummerScape Festival as Xanthe in Richard Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae, with the Washington Concert Opera as Dorinda in Handel’s Orlando, with Michigan Opera Theatre as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Arizona Opera as Mabel in Pirates of Penzance, Opera Grand Rapids as Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Maria in West Side Story and Micaela in Carmen, Opera Omaha as Fanny in Il Cambiale di Matrimonio, Toledo Opera as Violetta in La Traviata, Josephine in HMS Pinafore with both the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and San Antonio Opera, with Central City Opera as Maria in West Side Story, Kathie in The Student Prince, Anne in A Little Night Music, and Lucia in Rape of Lucretia, with Chautauqua Opera as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, with Des Moines Metro Opera as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Lisette in La Rondine, and Abigail Williams in The Crucible, Opera Company of North Carolina and Mississippi Opera as Gilda in Rigoletto, Piedmont Opera as Clara in The Light in the Piazza, and Opera Theater of Connecticut as Violetta in La Traviata and Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Her roles with the New Orleans Opera include Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Micaela in Carmen, Valencienne in The Merry Widow, Musetta in La Bohème, Monica in The Medium, and Maria in West Side Story. Sarah Jane also performed Donna Clara, the Infanta, in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg at Bard SummerScape Festival for which Opera News wrote: “Sarah Jane McMahon laughed and danced as the glamorous Infanta, making a golden sound with an alluring light vibrato that evoked the young Pilar Lorengar.”

A summa cum laude graduate of Loyola University, New Orleans, and Yale University, concert appearances have included Christmas Concerts with The San Francisco Symphony, California Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and Shreveport Symphony, Carmina Burana at Avery Fisher Hall and with the Tulsa Opera and Ballet, the Rutter Requiem at Carnegie Hall, Knoxville Summer of 1915/Mahler 4 with the Portland Symphony and Ridgefield Symphony, Bravissimo! with the Canadian Opera Orchestra, Messiah with the Jacksonville Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler 8 with the Asheville Symphony, Gala concerts with the Sarasota Symphony and Youngstown Symphony, and Baroque concerts with Lyrica Baroque. No stranger to the world of popular music -- Sarah Jane starred in her well-received one-woman show, SJ - The Cabaret, at the famed Joe’s Pub in New York City and has appeared in numerous concerts on Broadway at Town Hall, NYC.

Sarah Jane has recorded the title role in the premiere recording of Emmerich Kalman’s Sari, available on Albany Records. She also has an album of sacred music (I Thank My God) dedicated to New Orleans and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, a Christmas album, Night of Silence, and an old standards album, Blessings and Silver Linings available on iTunes and www.sarahjanemcmahon.com. Sarah Jane serves as the Director of Sacred Music/Cantor at the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis King of France in New Orleans.