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Hailed for her “perfect vocalism” and described as “fiery, wild, and dangerous” (Classical Voice North Carolina) with “a talent for character portrayal” (Chicago Classical Review), soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America. Recent solo engagements include Handel Messiah (Memphis and Winston-Salem Symphonies, Messiah Festival of the Arts); Bach St Matthew Passion (Bach Akademie Charlotte and Messiah Festival of the Arts); Bach B minor Mass (Bach Akademie Charlotte and American Bach Soloists Academy), Del Tredici's An Alice Symphony (Portland Symphony); Vaughan Williams Benedicite and Bach Jauchzet Gott (Arizona MusicFest); and Rutter Requiem (Evansville Philharmonic). Alongside organist and harpsichordist Nicolas Haigh, Margaret is co-founder of L’Académie du Roi Soleil, an ensemble specializing in French music from the time of Louis XIV with which she has performed in venues including York Minster; New College Chapel, Oxford; and Clare College Chapel, Cambridge.

2019-2020 season highlights include appearances with Bach Akademie Charlotte, Handel and Haydn Society, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Newberry Consort, Alchymy Viols, Apollo’s Fire, Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival, multiple performances with L’Académie du Roi Soleil, and a solo Canadian début with Scaramella, presenting her own original work on Baroque gesture and the Ferrarese concerto delle donne.

Margaret holds the D.M.A. from Case Western Reserve University; the M.Mus from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar; and undergraduate degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Bach Akademie Charlotte’s yearly Charlotte Bach Festival, and Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute. For more information, visit www.margaretcarpenterhaigh.com.

I grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand, where I later studied a BA in Classical Studies and Anthropology, and a BA Hons and MA in Anthropology at Otago University. My work explores the deep human history of the Indo-Pacific islands and long term changes to society, technology, and subsistence. My research around New Guinea has focussed on 1) the production and exchange of material culture by Austronesian-speaking communities around the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea; 2) Pleistocene-Holocene settlement, agriculture, and trade around the New Guinea Highlands; and, most recently as the subject of my PhD research, 3) human adaptation to small rainforested islands in eastern Wallacea and northwest New Guinea. Prior to beginning my PhD I was employed as Research Coordinator at Southern Pacific Archaeological Research where I examined stone tool industries around southern Aotearoa, early European settler urbanisation and industry, and the first Chinese settlement of New Zealand in the late nineteenth century.

Previous Education

University of Otago

I am a Jamaican-American educator interested in the social protection of marginalised populations in the Caribbean and East Africa. The goal of my doctoral studies is to carefully identify and creatively counter the barriers that impede the educational advancement of disadvantaged groups.