Sasha's World

Fall 2025
By Deborah Lynn Blumberg

Clad in a black and gold brocade evening gown, Sasha Cooke ’04 commands the stage at Santa Cecilia Hall, joining Italy’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia to perform — in German — Austrian composer Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, a meditation on death, judgment and eternal life.

The mix of languages, cultures and countries is standard fare for the Grammy Award-winning opera singer of Russian ancestry who’s performed in 11 countries and 25 cities this season alone, including firsts for her in Slovenia, Belgium, Norway and Poland. “That’s one of the greatest parts of this job — the travel,” she says. 

Cooke fell in love with Mahler’s music at Juilliard and wrote her master’s thesis on the composer. An early job offer from the Colorado Symphony was to sing “Resurrection,” Mahler’s Second Symphony. It’s a piece she’s returned to often during her 19-year career. In May, the “Mahler Queen,” as she’s called on social media, visited the composer’s grave outside Vienna and one of his compositional huts near Salzburg.
 

“There are pieces that go straight into your bones, and they stay,” Cooke says. “‘Resurrection’ is about nuance and pitch and artistry — there’s not a showy high note. It’s about being part of the emotional fabric of the piece. I sought Mahler out. I think he sought me out too. He’s one of the ingredients that’s taken me around the world.”

In Europe, Cooke appreciates that being an artist isn’t overly idealized. Rather, it’s considered a valuable profession that’s part of everyday life. That’s different from the U.S., where she’s sung at venues including the Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco Opera. “Here, it’s more about identity and ambition and excellence.” 
 

There are pieces that go straight into your bones, and they stay ... I sought Mahler out. I think he sought me out too. He’s one of the ingredients that’s taken me around the world.
 

“People imagine singing as glamorous,” says Cooke, “but that’s a very small percentage of it. The rest is booking flights, hotels or Airbnbs, attending rehearsals, coping with jet lag, and juggling relationships with family and friends from afar.”

No matter where she travels, Cooke has a habit of seeking out “third places” like coffee shops. “It’s a way of feeling like a local,” she says. “You end up talking to someone, having a human interaction, and that’s a direct line to your mental health.” 

This fall, she’ll sing in six countries and 22 cities, debuting in the Sydney Opera House with music by English composer Edward Elgar. She’ll also perform “Of Thee I Sing,” a recital celebrating composers who shaped and were shaped by America, in five U.S. cities. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about who we are,” Cooke says, “about the dream of America, and if we’re achieving that dream.”

Cooke says she wouldn’t be a musician if not for the personal attention she got as “a shy kid” at the Shepherd School of Music — where she ended up performing opera leads. It built her confidence. “I was seen and honored and taken care of,” she says. Early on, she told her Rice voice teacher she wanted to sound like other Rice female singers.

“She told me, ‘It’s good to be different.’ And a light bulb went off. I’m a case of it is good to be different.”
 

A Golden Evening

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke will take center stage at the Shepherd School of Music’s 50th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. She will be the featured vocal soloist in the premiere of “Another Starry Night,” a work for mezzo-soprano and orchestra by Shepherd composition professor Pierre Jalbert, commissioned in honor of the school’s milestone anniversary. The performance will be held in Stude Concert Hall with a gala dinner to follow on the Morrison Theater stage in Brockman Hall for Opera. She will also perform at the Houston Grand Opera in January and February.