Narantsetseg Ren
Mezzo-Soprano
Welcome to international-award-winning mezzo-soprano Narantsetseg Ren's official website.
A Nomadic Spirit Becomes The Dramatic Truth
Born and raised in the vast Xilin Gol Mongolian steppe—where singing is a daily life practice rather than a cultivated specialty—Narantsetseg Ren carries onto the stage an innate sense of storytelling and an arresting emotional candor, shaped by tradition and refined through rigorous classical training. Whether in the opera house or on the concert platform, her artistry is marked by vocal sophistication, stylistic versatility, and a distinctive tonal signature—an artist audiences remember for both the beauty of the sound and the depth of what it communicates.
An Operatic Voice that Enchants
Ren has distinguished herself across repertoire spanning the Baroque through the Romantic era. A specialist in early music, she has appeared on opera stages in North America and Europe as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Mercury in Bach’s Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan (BWV 201), and has been featured in Handel’s Messiah with symphony orchestras throughout North America. She is the winner of the 2026 American Bach Society Diversity Performance Grant, following the previous year’s honoree, internationally renowned tenor Nicholas Phan. A devoted Mozartian, Ren has delivered compelling portrayals of the Third Spirit and Third Lady in acclaimed productions of Die Zauberflöte. Her bel canto and Romantic credits include Flora in La traviata, Tisbe in La cenerentola, Teresa in La sonnambula, and a poignant Mama Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana.
A Classical Singer Rekindling the World's Musical Legacy
Ren is internationally recognized for a unique artistic mission:
to perform in order to preserve—reviving art song traditions that are underrepresented, endangered, and in some cases nearing extinction, and restoring them to the concert stage with the highest level of classical craft.
Her work centers on building lasting infrastructure for these repertoires: commissioning and creating new classical arrangements, preparing performable editions, shaping curated multilingual programs, and forming purpose-built collaborations that allow audiences to encounter these songs not as “ethnographic curiosities,” but as art of equal stature within the global canon.
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This preservation-through-performance model, together with her extraordinary artistry of performance, has earned sustained recognition. In 2024, she received the Passim Iguana Annual Music Award for founding the Boston Mongolian Artsong Ensemble and for her dedication to safeguarding endangered Mongolian art songs through classical interpretation—work that also advances a landmark recording project: the world’s first Mongolian art song album arranged in classical style, an unprecedented act of repertoire-building and cultural preservation. In early 2025, she was awarded the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Grant for Creative Individuals, the Boston Major Artistic Award, and the Anna Sosenko Trust Award, underwriting a Mongolian artsong concert tour across North America. In April 2025, the Finlandia Foundation National honored her with its annual grant, enabling an ambitious Finnish art song tour with world-class Finnish musicians and bringing this repertoire to Ivy League campuses across the United States. In 2026, she was named the sole recipient of the Thomas Hampson Fellowship from the Society of American Songs for her art song initiative, Across the Bridge: The Origins and Social Functions of Native American Song in Relation to Mongolian and Siberian Traditions.
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At Toronto’s Telus Performance Centre, her appearance in the Ukrainian Art Song Concert drew special notice from Joseph So (Opera Canada; Ludwig Van Toronto), who wrote with a “soft spot” for her performance. Across opera houses and concert halls, Ren offers something increasingly rare: a voice of genuine distinction paired with a preservationist’s urgency and a diplomat’s imagination—an artist who arrives not only with roles prepared, but with repertories saved.
A World-Class Scholar in Music Cognition
At the forefront of artistic excellence, Narantsetseg is also a world-class scholar in speech and music perception (Ph.D., Brown University). Her pioneering research focuses on how infants perceive music and language, positioning her as a notable figure in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Publishing under the pseudonym "Jie Ren," she has authored articles in leading scientific journals and presented her work at major international conferences, establishing herself as a prominent voice in music and brain research. As an active editor, peer reviewer, and organizer within academia, Narantsetseg continues to shape the evolving discourse at the intersection of music and human development. For more information about Dr. Ren's academic career and publications, please refer to her academic page here.
Cherry Valley - Roger Quilter
Selected Upcoming Concerts
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February 13, 2026 · 7:30 PM
Eurasian Art Song Concert (Pianist: Azamet Sydykov)
National Opera Center, 330 7th Avenue, New York City
Presented by the Madison Baptist Church Emerging Artist Program
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March 28, 2026 · 2:00 PM
Finnish Art Song Concert (Pianist: Markus Kaitila)
Holden Chapel, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
Sponsored by Finlandia Foundation National
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July 11, 2026 · 3:00 PM
Christopher Tin: The Drop That Contained the Sea
(Evening-length work; Conductor: Alyssa Wang)
Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory (Boston, MA)
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August–October 2026
Bach Concert Tour (Boston)
(Pianist: Noriko Yasuda · Violinist: Danilo Bonina)
Dates and venues to be announced
Sponsored by the American Bach Society
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Thanksgiving Concert of Across the Bridge: The Origins and Social Functions of Native American Song
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston — Saturday after Black Friday
(Date and time subject to change)
Sponsored by the Society of American Songs — Thomas Hampson Fellowship
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December 31, 2026
New Year’s Eve German Recital
Goethe-Institut Boston