About Kimberly

Kimberly Milburn is an American mezzo-soprano who is beginning to make her mark on the New York opera scene. A trained actress with a lyric-dramatic instrument, she is at home in a wide variety of repertoire. This spring, she makes her role and company debut with the Amore Opera as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly at New York's Hungarian House. Last fall, she returned to the Ridgewood Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Co. as Leila in Iolanthe and covered the title role in a preview concert. In spring and summer 2024, she portrayed Second Witch in Dido and Aeneas with the Ridgewood Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Co., and she sang Adalgisa in a scene from Norma with the Asian American Music Society for their Kennedy Center emerging artist intensive. She also performed for masterclasses with Kathleen McKellar Ferguson, Joanie Brittingham, Rick Davis, and Kyle Pfortmiller at the REACH and at the Classical Singer convention in Washington, D.C.

She began the 2022-23 season with the dell'Arte Opera Ensemble at their Finding Home Festival in both the earliest and newest of operas, appearing as Ericlea and covering the soprano role of Giunone for rehearsals in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, covering the dramatic mezzo role of Sor Rafaela for the East Coast premiere of Carla Lucero and Alicia Gaspar de Alba's Juana, and singing Carmen excerpted in concert. After completing her first fall audition season, she was invited to a fully-funded international intensive and was a soloist in concert at the REACH at Kennedy Center with the Asian American Music Society, where she also played Zita in a scene from Gianni Schicchi. In February, she made her Symphony Space debut with the Village Light Opera as Leila in lolanthe. In May, she returned to the Bronx Opera's outreach program to portray Mère Marie in Poulenc's 20th century masterpiece, Dialogues of the Carmelites. She was scheduled to perform Carmen outdoors with the No Strings Theatre (Toronto) in August but withdrew before the rehearsal period began due to heat-related illness. Over the past few seasons, she was also in opera and Broadway concerts in New York and Washington, D.C., singing Dorabella, Nicklausse, Carmen, Lyubasha, Komponist, Augusta Tabor, and Lilli Vanessi.

Kimberly was born in Busan, Korea and grew up in the American South. Her first engagements were on the concert stage as soloist in Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, Bach's Easter Cantata "Der Himmel Lacht" (both with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra), and Chailley's Suite du XVe Siècle. She made her operatic debut in 2019 as Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte at Weill Recital Hall (d. Myra Cordell). She was then cast as Ludmila in The Bartered Bride (canceled due to the pandemic) with the Bronx Opera’s outreach program.

In 2021, she began taking acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. That fall she was thrilled to join the international voice studio of Michael Paul. And to deepen her artistry, she decided to enroll in a full year of drama school at HB Studio. Her educational background also includes piano with teachers including Juilliard pianist David Cooper, and she also was a scholarship student of Steinway artist Victor Asuncion. She speaks some French and Italian and is learning to speak German at the Goethe Institut. Offstage, Kimberly is interested in food and wine, travel, current events, and fitness classes. She currently studies, teaches, performs, and makes her home in New York City.

Contact her here, or find her on ig/yt @kimbermusik