Here in the Binghamton, NY area we have a Musicians Union along with an opera company. MAny of our local soloists either started with the opera or are members of the union. I'd say to look for opportunities with amateur theater groups or distribute a sampler CD to various churches and large community choirs if neither of my first hints are available to you.

Hi, Derrada. That's actually a subset of the larger question, How does one establish a career as a professional singer? And the answer is that there is no answer!

 

You have to make contacts, network with the right people, and make yourself known in any way you can. (This assumes that your voice is of a quality that people other than yourself will recognize it as suitable for the kinds of solos you're asking about, of course.) Realize that every spring, colleges and conservatories graduate a new crop of young singers, some of them very, very good, and they all face exactly the same questions. And God must truly love sopranos, he made so many of them! Being recognized as a competent soloist at ANY level requires talent, good training, experience, persistence, and plenty of luck.

 

My son is doing all that right now, and continues to do it. He has made valuable contacts (this is at the professional level rather than the community level) through singing in competitions, some of which he has won and some of which he has not, but even the latter lets people hear you and might put you on their list of people to contact in an emergency. That's exactly how he made his Carnegie Hall debut. But when something like that happens, you have to already know the repertoire and be ready to step in on a moment's notice, or be able to learn it quickly and without a lot of hassle on the part of the conductor.

 

Knowing and working with conductors is one important avenue, since conductors often make the choices of soloists for large choral-orchestral works, and ALWAYS make those choices if they cast them from within their ensembles. But "open auditions" are probably very rare at ANY level from educational to professional, since people want to cast singers whom they know, whose voices and musicianship they respect, and who have proven their reliability.

 

All the best!

 

John