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Cadence Chung
Voice Type
Mezzo-Soprano
Home Town
Wellington
How did you become interested in opera singing?
When I was growing up, my mum enrolled me in all sorts of lessons to see what I might like. I received music lessons from when I was 18 months old (mainly just banging finger cymbals together I think!) and began piano lessons when I was five. So I already had that musical background, and when I was nine years old, I watched a performance of The Phantom of the Opera, which sparked my interest in singing. I would sing along to karaoke tracks in my room for hours, and after winning my school talent show singing a piece from Phantom, my mum enrolled me in singing lessons. I studied with Lesley Graham until I graduated high school, and it only seemed natural to keep going with classical performance at university.
Performance highlights so far?
I loved singing with Stroma New Music Ensemble in their 2024 concert The Light Within, where I was the mezzo soloist in Kaija Saariaho's Grammaire des Rêves. Playing with such a tight ensemble of widely-renowned musicians was wonderful, and I love the challenge of performing 20th-century and contemporary pieces. This love has led me to organise ventures of my own, and I've debuted many of my own compositions, as well as those by my contemporaries. In the context of opera specifically, I love being a 'stage animal', especially in trouser roles. I've been lucky enough to perform as Cherubino and Urbain at the NZ Opera School showcases, and the entire role of L'enfant in the New Zealand School of Music's 2025 production of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges.
Photo © Karen Hughes
Photo © Richard Wood
What are you looking forward to about being part of TANZOS?
I'm excited to really refine my vocal technique and hone into the operatic part of my arts practice. During my degree in Wellington I had a lot of engagements, both in poetry and music, which was wonderful, but left me constantly preparing for the next gig. I feel that the intensity and focus of the TANZOS programme will cement me as a grounded and consistent operatic performer.
What are your career hopes following TANZOS?
I hope to go straight into a young artist programme once I have graduated. TANZOS is such a wonderful springboard to professional work and I hope to skip overseas study, going straight into learning on the job. My ultimate goal is to work in a German opera house on a fixed contract. For me personally, being an opera singer is not about glory and fame — it's about being able to immerse myself in this practice and fully live within the art form. I feel that being a musician is more akin to being an artisan than an artist; that musicking is a tangible, solid, and steadfast craft.
Supported by the Te Pae Kōkako Opera Grant
Biography
Cadence Chung is a mezzo-soprano studying at Te Pae Kōkako - The Aotearoa New Zealand Opera Studio (TANZOS), supported by a Te Pae Kōkako Opera Grant. She has a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours from the New Zealand School of Music, and also attended the prestigious New Zealand Opera School in 2025 and 2026.
Cadence has received numerous prizes such as the FAME Emerging Practitioner Award, the 2025 Ariadne Danilow Music Prize for the BMus student with the highest GPA, the Mona Ross Prize for Excellence in Singing, and the NZSM Opera Award for Excellence in Performance. As well as this, she has had success in national competitions, including receiving the highest marks in the Under 21 category of the Wellington Vocal Competition two years in a row, coming 3rd place in the 2023 NZ Aria Under 21 category, and reaching the finals of the 2025 Wellington Vocal Competition and 2026 Nicholas Tarling Aria Competition.
Cadence has performed in the choruses of NZ Opera, Wellington Opera, and Days Bay Opera. Her work as a concert soloist includes singing as the mezzo soloist in Kaija Saariaho’s Grammaire des Rêves with Stroma New Music Ensemble, singing the national anthem at Parliament and Victoria University graduations multiple times, singing a solo recital of Lieder at the Goethe-Institut, singing as the mezzo soloist for the NZ Choral Federation’s workshop of Mozart’s Requiem, as the mezzo soloist in Haydn’s Nelson Mass with Napier Civic choir, and in gala concerts with the Dame Malvina Major Foundation and Kāpiti Chorale.
Cadence has created many of her own ventures, including organising a regular series of Salons for poets and musicians to share new work, debuting an original cabaret song cycle (Love Letterz at Kia Mau Festival, 2025), curating and performing in an entire concert of collaborative works between New Zealand composers and poets (Cud-Chewing Country, 2023), performing in her play Hector and musical In Blind Faith (BATS Theatre, 2024 and 2022), and performing original lyre songs based on Sappho’s fragments (Verb Festival, 2023). She also produced an anthology of music, poetry, and visual art by young New Zealanders as the 2023 Ruth and Oswald L. Kraus Innovator-in-Residence with Wai-te-Ata Press.
The release of her poetry book Mad Diva (Otago University Press, 2025) was accompanied by a nationwide tour in which Cadence performed both poetry and arias. She also curated and performed a hybrid poetry reading/lecture recital based around this book for the Wairarapa Word Festival 2025.
A strong and energetic performer, Cadence has played Hӓnsel (Hӓnsel und Gretel), Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), and Urbain (Les Huguenots) in opera scenes and galas, as well as the title role in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges in the New Zealand School of Music’s 2025 production at the Hannah Playhouse. She loves contemporary and canonical works equally, and is known for a lively stage presence and sense of character.
For a full portfolio, visit her website.