Boston - based soprano and flutist Mara Riley is recognized for her compelling musicality, having a particular affinity for early music, art song, and ensemble work. She plays both modern and Baroque flute.

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​This 2024-2025 season she performs with the Boston Early Music Festival as both a singer (Telemann's Don Quichotte) and a flutist (Telemann's Pimpinone and Ino). She appears as the soprano soloist with the Colorado Bach Ensemble (BWV 47), Emmanuel Music (BWV 127, 227, 122, Ruehr’s Song of the Earth), and the Boulder Bach Festival (arias by Vivaldi, Agnesi, Merula, and Caccini). She also joins the Boulder Bach Festival as flute soloist for Bach's beloved Brandenburg Concerto no. 5.

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She finds great fulfillment in ensemble singing, having sung with various professional church choirs across Boston. She sings regularly on Emmanuel Music's weekly Cantata Series, as well as their season concerts (Bach's St. Matthew Passion in 2024, "Christmas at Emmanuel," and an upcoming performance of Bach's B minor mass). She sings with Nightingale Vocal Ensemble this season on their projects Nightingala, Solstice, and Voices of Water. She is one of the 2024/2025 Voces8 US Scholars and was featured in concert with both Voces8 and Lyyra.

In 2023, she was named first prize winner in the Colorado Bach Ensemble's Young Artist Competition with her performance of Jauchzet, Gott in allen Landen. She was the 2023 soprano fellow with Emmanuel Music’s Bach Institute, and she has since been a regular ensemble member and soloist with Emmanuel Music. She sang Handel’s Samson with the Cambridge Chamber Ensemble (Philistine Woman), and was the soprano soloist for two performances of BWV 10 with the Colorado Bach Ensemble. She was named winner of the 2024 Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra Collegiate competition, and was later featured as soprano soloist in their performance of Handel's Messiah. In 2023, she appeared as soprano soloist in Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Back Bay Chorale under the baton of Anthony Trecek-King. She was the soprano soloist in Handel's Messiah with the Boulder Bach Festival, in both 2023 and 2021. 

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In the summer of 2024, she joined the orchestra for Blue Hill Bach's St. Matthew Passion (Baroque flute).

She sang the role of Calisto in Cavalli's La Calisto in the New England Conservatory's 2023 production. Other favorite opera roles have included: Mary Bailey in Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Héro in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict. 

Her performance of Poulenc's Il vole (Fiançailles pour rire) was awarded the Honorable Mention (Best Performance of a non-contemporary work) in the 2024 Calliope's Call Young Singer Art Song Competition. She was heavily involved in the art song activities at NEC, as a member of the selective Song Lab. She continues to take on various art song/recital projects, and has a special love for the music of Hugo Wolf. She was the runner up in the University of Colorado Honors Competition (2020) for her performance of Britten's Les Illuminations.

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She recently completed a double masters (MM '24) in Flute and Vocal Performance at the New England Conservatory, in the respective studios of Paula Robison and Lisa Saffer. She holds a double BM from the University of Colorado - Boulder, where she studied with Christina Jennings and Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson. She studies Baroque flute with Andrea LeBlanc.

When not practicing, she loves to be outside (bonus points if the sun is out) and can often be found hiking or backpacking in her home state of Colorado. Her goal in life is to meet as many dogs as possible.