Biography
Coloratura soprano Malia Bendi Merad made her debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in 2003, while still a student at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, as the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo with Maestro Franz Welser-Möst. She subsequently sang a critically acclaimed recital on the Cleveland Museum of Art’s prestigious series, and has received festival and operatic invitations in quick succession
In 2004 she sang under the direction of Maestro Pierre Boulez with the Cleveland Orchestra as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal, both in Cleveland and in her February 2004 Carnegie Hall debut. In April of the same year she made her Opéra de Lyon debut with conductor Marc Minkowski in Rameau’s Les Boréades, a work she sang the following year in her Strasbourg debut. The Opera du Rhin, invited her back in September to premiere PAN, a contemporary opera by French composer Marc Monnet, in the prestigious festival MUSICA. In 2004, she made her first appearance with conductor Jeannette Sorrell and the Akron Symphony, singing Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Coronation Mass. She then returned to the Cleveland Orchestra as the Sandman and Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel under the baton of Maestro Franz Welser-Möst; followed by Handel’s Messiah with the early-music ensemble Apollo’s Fire.
In February of 2007, she sang the role of Mattia, a young Italian boy in the world premiere of the musical “Sans Famille” by film composer Jean Claude Petit, at the Opera de Nice. She was then invited by the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble to sing Luigi Dallapiccola’s “An Mathilde”. In May she returned to New York City to sing with New York City Opera in the New York Composer’s Showcase, performing excerpts of newly composed operas, working in close collaboration with the composers themselves. She was re-invited by New York City Opera in August to perform concerts in the Park promoting their upcoming season.
Other highlights include Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Amour in Gluck’s Orphée at the Festival Lyrique-en-Mer, in Belle Ile, France, and at the Opera de Montpellier.
At Oberlin she also performed such roles as Morgana in Handel’s Alcina, Fatime in Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes, Marphise in Royer’s Le Pouvoir de l’amour, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Star in Mollicone’s Coyote Tales and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. Concert performances included the Biber Requiem with the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Choral Fantasy with the Oberlin Musical Union and Variations on a Summer Day by Paul Cox and the third movement of Henryk Gorécki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sad Songs) with the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble. As an ensemble artist with the Opera Theater of St. Louis, she appeared as the second spirit in The Magic Flute.
Born and raised in North Africa,, Malia Bendi Merad later moved to her mother’s native France. She earned a Diploma of Pharmacy from the Université René Descartes in Paris before her singing talent was discovered. She then pursued her musical studies in the United States.