Peruvian-American mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra was noted as a “standout” in the Wall Street Journal, for her performance with the Tanglewood Music Center as Mrs. Doc in Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place. Guerra "created a sensation" (BravoCalifornia) singing the role of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro in Santa Barbara. For the past year, Guerra has been workshopping the opera Iphigenia by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding and performed scenes from the opera as part of the REACH Festival at the Kennedy Center this past September.

Spring 2021 Kelly will sing Zweite Dame in Lighthouse Opera's Die Zauberflöte and will sing with the Metropolitan Opera Guild. During the 2019-2020 season, Guerra was an Opera Santa Barbara Chrisman Studio Artist where she covered the roles of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and Donna Rosa in Il Postino. Due to COVID-19 cancellations, Guerra was unable to perform the role of Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette during their season. Spring 2020, Guerra would have also premiered Katherine Balch’s Cantata for Orchestra and 3 Voices with the California Symphony. During the summer season, Guerra would have also been an apprentice artist at the Chautauqua Opera festival, singing the role of Indiana Elliott in Virgil Thomson’s Mother of Us All. Updates will be provided when these events are rescheduled.

Guerra won first place in Santa Barbara’s Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation competition in 2018. She was also a recipient of a travel grant to Germany from the Max Kade Foundation. Guerra has been featured at the Lucerne Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, and the Bard Music Festival. Guerra has performed with a variety of ensembles including the Albany Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Garden State Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, Contemporaneous, Opera Parallèle and BluePrint. As a performer of contemporary music, Kelly starred as Jennie The Sealyham Terrier in a National Opera Association award-winning production of Oliver Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Other roles in her repertoire include Dorabella in Così fan Tutte, Charlotte in Werther, and Sesto in Giulio Cesare.

As a first-generation American and native of Southern California, Kelly is passionate about producing projects that raise awareness and monetary aid for detained immigrants in the USA as well as performing excellent music composed by minority groups. She holds a D.M.A from UC Santa Barbara, her master’s in music from the Bard College Conservatory, and her bachelor’s from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she graduated with an award of Vocal Excellence.