A native of Philadelphia, soprano Leah Hawkins is the 2024 recipient of the Beverly Sills Artist Award from the Metropolitan Opera. The 2025-26 season brings a role and house debut as Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites at The Dallas Opera, Serena in Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, Tosca in her house debut at La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, and many exciting concerts and recitals. She began the 2024-25 season in a lauded recital at the Park Avenue Armory, followed by several recital and concert appearances in New York City. She made an exciting role debut as Leonora in Il trovatore at the Met, and returned to both Arizona Opera for her acclaimed role debut as Aida, and the Philadelphia Orchestra for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. She began the 2023-24 season in Verdi's Messa da Requiem and X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the Metropolitan Opera, reprised her roles in X at Seattle Opera, and debuted as Giorgetta in Il Tabarro at Dutch National Opera. The winner of the 2023 Marian Anderson Award, a 2022 Richard Tucker Career Grant, and the 2021 Women in Classical Music Career Development Award, nominated by Renée Fleming, she recently presented a recital at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, sang La bohème with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Verdi's Messa da Requiem with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel.