Biography

Creativity, theatricality, and virtuosity have long defined the musical adventures of two-time Grammy Award-winning soprano, vocalist, and actress Hilá Plitmann. Widely recognized as one of today’s foremost interpreters of contemporary music, she regularly premieres new works by a diverse array of composers including Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Del Tredici, Frank Zappa, Aaron Jay Kernis, Thomas Adès, Jeff Beal, Xiaogang YE, Paola Prestini, Danaë Vlasse, and John Corigliano.

Her appearances as soloist have included the Los Angeles, New York, and Israel philharmonics; Chicago, Boston, London, BBC, National, St. Louis, Atlanta, Albany, Detroit, Hamburg, Stockholm, and Melbourne symphonies; and the Minnesota and Orpheus Chamber orchestras. She can also be heard as featured vocal soloist on film soundtracks for The Da Vinci Code, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Hail Caesar, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Her discography includes Corigliano’s song cycle Mr. Tambourine Man and Vlasse’s Mythologies (both Grammy winners for Best Classical Vocal Performance); Andrea Clearfield’s Women of Valor with Tovah Feldshuh; Richard Danielpour’s Toward a Season and Peace and Grammy Award-winning Passion of Yeshua; Eric Whitacre’s Good Night Moon; and George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill.

Hilá first took the opera stage at age 14 with the Israeli Opera, and she continues to perform with companies across the US, including notable roles in works by Stephen Schwartz, Mark Adamo, Gerald Barry, and Yuval Sharon and Annie Gosfield. She was nominated as Best Actress in a Musical by the Los Angeles Ovation Awards and L.A. Ticketholder Awards for her performance in Eric Whitacre’s groundbreaking electro-musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings. With jazz guitarist Shea Welsh and tabla virtuoso Aditya Kalyanpur, she recently co-founded Renaissance Heart, a global music project melding classical, jazz, folk, rock, and world music.
Hilá’s work is informed by her love of poetry, focus on discipline (she holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do), and engagement with nature. She hopes her artistic risk-taking emboldens audiences to expand their comfort zones.

(12/2022)