Artist Spotlight-Rebecca Kellerman Petretta

Lyric Soprano Rebecca Kellerman Petretta has performed for audiences throughout the metropolitan area as a soloist and chorister in works ranging from medieval to 21st Century. Her opera roles have included Ino in Handel’s Semele, Mrs. Gobineau in Menotti’s The Medium, Nella in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and various partial roles. As an oratorio singer, she has been soloist in performances of Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt, Faure’s Requiem, Bach’s St. John and St. Luke Passions, numerous Bach cantatas, and many other oratorios.

Growing up in a central Pennsylvania family of musicians, Rebecca ended up being the only singer in a house full of instrumentalists. Her parents and older brother were all public school music teachers. Having played flute, piano, saxophone, and cello is high school, Rebecca put down the instruments when she fell in love with choral singing at Shenandoah University where she sung under the baton of Robert Shafer. After finishing her master’s degree, she worked as an accreditation coordinator for The National Association of Schools of Music, Dance, Theatre and Art and Design, before becoming a public school teacher in Jefferson County, WV.

She now teaches voice lessons during the day and performs in the evenings. She commutes to Washington from Charles Town, WV (near Harpers Ferry), where she and her family live in a 250 year old log home just a short walk from many of the area’s historic landmarks. In addition to living in such a historic community (Charles Town was founded by George Washington’s brother, Charles, plus many sites figure prominently in the life of local Civil War figure John Brown), Rebecca loves the area’s recreational activities: two rivers for canoeing, plenty of trails to hike and bike, and Jefferson rock—the view that inspired Thomas Jefferson to declare the scene “worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”