A deeply human recital for voice and piano. In the middle of winter, we come together around a symbolic fire. Not to solve the world’s problems or explain them, but simply to share a moment of stillness and breathe.

Soprano Meechot Marrero and pianist Thomas Victor Johnson invite the audience into a space of warmth, reflection and connection.

Meechot’s journey, from a small Caribbean island to major European opera houses and now Australia, shapes a program grounded in migration, cultural bridges, and a belief in music’s power to bring people closer.

‘One Breath’ is an invitation to pause and reconnect.

About Meechot Marrero
Sydney based, Puerto Rican soprano Meechot Marrero has forged an international career across opera, concert, and festival stages. During her years at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Meechot established herself in a variety of lyric and character roles, including Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Musetta (La bohème), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Liù in Turandot, and the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen. She also portrayed Micaëla in Carmen, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Nannetta in Falstaff, and Marzelline in Fidelio, and appeared as Woglinde in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung, the latter released on DVD for Naxos. Meechot has also collaborated extensively with conductor Sir Donald Runnicles, appearing with him at both the Edinburgh International Festival and the Grand Teton Music Festival. Their projects together have ranged from Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to roles including the Young Shepherd (Tannhäuser), Maria (West Side Story), Musetta and Papagena.

In her native Puerto Rico, Meechot has appeared at the Casals Festival in both operatic and concert repertoire, performing roles such as Nuria in Golijov’s ‘Ainadamar’ and Trujamán in de Falla’s ‘El retablo del Maese Pedro’, as well as Menotti’s ‘Muero porque no muero’, de Falla’s ‘Siete canciones populares españolas’, and Villa-Lobos’ ‘Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5’.

Meechot’s broader concert repertoire includes ‘Carmina Burana’ with the Sun Valley Music Festival and the Oakland, Grand Rapids, and Nashville Symphony Orchestras. With CulturArte de Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra she sang Rosaura in Guerrero’s ‘Los Gavilanes’, and with the Puerto Rico Symphony and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin she appeared in Bernstein’s ‘Concert Suite No. 1’ from ‘West Side Story’. She took the soprano solos in Mendelssohn’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’ with the Coro de Niños de San Juan, and Haydn’s ‘The Creation’ with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bayamón and performed Berg’s ‘Seven Early Songs’ with the Nashville Symphony.

Meechot graduated as valedictorian from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music and holds a Master of Music from the Yale School of Music.

About Thomas Victor Johnson
Winner of the Richard Bonynge Accompanists Award at the 2018 Sydney International Song Prize, Thomas Victor Johnson is a vocal coach and pianist living on the unceded lands of the Gadigal people. Thomas currently works as a repetiteur with Opera Australia, is a staff vocal coach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and is a regular guest teacher at Te Pae Kōkako, The Aotearoa New Zealand Opera Studio (TANZOS) at the University of Waikato.

Thomas has worked with and played for conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Antonio Pappano, Simone Young AM, Daniel Harding, Philippe Auguin, Pietari Inkinen, Thomas Guggeis, Speranza Scappucci, Massimo Zanetti, Renato Palumbo, Carlo Montanaro, Guillaume Tourniaire, Patrick Lange, Andrea Battistoni, Anthony Legge, Tom Woods, Maxime Pascal, Stuart Stratford, Giuseppe Montesano, Brad Cohen, Jonathan Darlington, Antony Walker, Kristiina Poska, Pietro Rizzo, Benjamin Northey, Tahu Matheson, and Christian Badea.

Thomas was a music staff member at Staatsoper Unter den Linden from the 2018/2019 to 2022/2023 seasons, where he also served as Stellvertretender Chordirektor during the 2021/2022 season. Prior to his time in Berlin, he worked as a solo repetiteur with Opera Australia after serving as the of Head of Music at West Australian Opera for a two-year term. During this time at WAO, Thomas managed the music and language staff, guided the Young Artist Program, auditioned and prepared the chorus, coached principal artists, and designed and implemented new community engagement projects. His career in opera began with his appointment to the role of Assistant Chorus Master and Children’s Chorus Master at Opera Australia in 2012.

He has performed in recital with singers including Nicole Car, Étienne Dupuis, Anna Kissjudit, Noa Beinart, Margaret Plummer and Bruno de Sá, and has worked with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Northern Ireland Opera, Sydney Philharmonia, Australian Youth Orchestra, Gondwana Indigenous Children’s Choir, Sydney Children's Choir, The Choir of Christ Church St Laurence Sydney, Bel A Cappella, Sydney Chamber Choir, as well as a guest appearance with cabaret artist Meow Meow.

Thomas is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he studied piano performance and accompaniment with Natalia Sheludiakova. He studied in masterclasses with pianists Stephen Hough, Mikhail Voskressensky, Gerard Willems, Ruth Nye, Andrew Ball, Marco Rapetti, Cristina Ortiz, and Iain Burnside. In 2019, Thomas was the recipient of a study scholarship from the Wagner Society of NSW.