Carla Dirlikov Canales

Activist, Entrepreneur, Global soul, Musician, Performer, World traveler

Carla Canales has been praised by Opera Magazine for possessing a voice that “grabs the heartstrings with its dramatic force and musicality.” She has won acclaim on leading stages around the world as a performer while also being recognized as an advocate and leading voice of her generation. Carla has served as a U.S. State Department Arts Envoy since 2005, and in 2020 will create new programs for the U.S. Embassies in Honduras, Peru, Montenegro, and Kazakhstan. A lover of all musical genres, Carla celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month this year with the single “Zorongo” from her debut album Duende, out in October 2020. The album reimagines Spanish folk melodies with electronics, and was inspired by the great Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. Lorca interpreted the term “Duende” as being the root of art and creation, surrounding the struggle to find meaning in life. While in demand for her portrayal of Bizet’s Carmen, Carla sang the title role over eighty times in twelve countries. Her performance was praised by Opera News as “a well-practiced, sexy Carmen, [Carla] dominated the show.” As a concert soloist, she has sung Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. She has also performed as a soloist with the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, and appeared multiple times with the China National Symphony Orchestra. An accomplished recitalist, Carla has performed solo recitals at the National Gallery of Art, Guangzhou Opera, China’s National Center for the Performing Arts, Forbidden City Concert Hall, and most recently a solo recital at the Kennedy Center. Carla holds dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship, and has appeared frequently in performances throughout Latin America. Recently she was a featured guest artist in the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Anniversary Concert “Voices of Mexico,” which was nationally televised throughout Mexico and released as a commercial recording. Carla has also performed on the nationally-televised Hispanic Heritage Awards, and was a guest artist for Vice President Biden's Hispanic Heritage Month Reception and the National Endowment for the Art's 50th Anniversary Celebration. Carla is the recipient of the prestigious Sphinx Medal of Excellence, an honor bestowed upon her by Justice Sotomayor at the United States Supreme Court, and was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers for her work using music to bridge cultural barriers. Under President Obama she was invited to serve on the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities as a Turnaround Artist, and in all of the above was the first opera singer to receive these distinctions. Carla was also named one of Musical America’s 30 Movers and Shapers of 2018. Carla is the founder of The Canales Project, a non-profit arts and advocacy organization through which she created Hear Her Song, a musical celebration of distinguished female leaders worldwide that commissions new songs written by female composers to honor them. To date she has performed project selections over a dozen times at venues including the National Gallery of Art, United Nations, The Public Theater, and Kennedy Center. The project engages a variety of participants and partners worldwide, including Vital Voices,El Sistema USA, and participants including honorees Hillary Clinton, Sonia Sotomayor, and Malala Yousafzai. The project continues to build a category of commissioned songs, with efforts to reach fifty by 2021. Carla has been a guest speaker/lecturer at Harvard University, Berklee College of Music, Aspen Institute, and TEDxMidAtlantic. She is fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English.

Music, Opera