VIRA SLYWOTZKY has performed principal roles with Seattle Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Chelsea Opera, Center for Contemporary Opera, Light Opera of New York, Sarasota Opera, Boston Midsummer Opera and Victor Herbert Renaissance Project – LIVE!, and has appeared in concert with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Hudson Festival Orchestra, New Haven Chamber Orchestra and Rockland Camerata. She has sung recitals, concerts and cabarets in New York at Klavierhaus, Merkin Hall, Metropolitan Room, Opera America, Sheen Center, SubCulture, Symphony Space, The Duplex, Ukrainian Institute, Ukrainian Museum, Weill Hall and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Internationally Slywotzky has performed at the Hudson Music Festival in Hudson, CA, Festival D’Avignon in Avignon, FR, at Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the American Church in Paris, FR, at the Armel Opera Festival in Szeged, HU, at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St. Petersburg, RU and at the Gustov Adolf Church in Sundsvall, SE.

A champion of new music, Slywotzky has premiered more than 30 vocal works, ranging in size and scope from stand-alone song to opera, perhaps most notably creating the role of Mrs. Fatima Bakshlevi in The Woman in Penthouse A as part of Single Occupancies: Three Contemporary Opera Theatre Monologues at Key West Studios in Key West, Florida in January 2020.

In May 2018 Slywotzky founded the concert series Vira & Friends with the aim of bringing people together to enjoy the live performance of songs written for voice and piano. Since January 2023, Vira & Friends has presented twelve performances in seven states of “This Ukrainian American Life,” a somewhat autobiographical concert/cabaret featuring Slywotzky and composer/pianist Dina Pruzhansky that builds cultural bridges between America and Ukraine and has raised $45,000 for Razom for Ukraine.

From 2008 to 2018 Slywotzky performed with Mirror Visions Ensemble, a vocal trio known for its innovative programming, nuanced performances and extensive commissioning. Slywotzky can be heard on the group’s 2015 commercial recording, The Three-Paneled Mirror.

The recipient of a 2007 Richard F. Gold Career Grant, Slywotzky was twice a New England Regional Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and in 2009 was the sole representative of the United States at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

Slywotzky joined the Board of Directors of the Berkshire Opera Festival a year before its inaugural season in 2016 and has served as President and Secretary.

Slywotzky received an MM from Mannes and a BA from Yale. She was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts.