Zoe McCormick stepped onto the stage of Tanna Schulich Hall on February 22 for the final round of the Wirth Vocal Prize competition, one of three performers vying for an award that has provided a tremendous career boost for a string of highly promising student vocalists.
By afternoon’s end, the Canadian soprano had won the 2026 prize, presented each year to a young McGill singer judged to have exceptional talent and the potential for an international career. The award includes a scholarship valued at $25,000.
The win comes at a significant moment for McCormick, MMus’25, as she completes her artist diploma in voice at McGill’s Schulich School of Music. Next season she’ll join the Calgary Opera’s McPhee Artist Development Program, which helps singers bridge the period between academic training and professional life.
The Wirth Vocal Prize was created in 2015 through the generosity of Elizabeth Wirth, BA’64, DMus’23. Winning the prize, says McCormick, feels like both a milestone and a form of practical support at exactly the right moment for her.
“It’s an incredible honour to be awarded this prize. It’s also an incredible support.”
McCormick’s musical training began with violin lessons at a young age in her hometown of Ponoka, Alberta. Her parents, who aren’t musicians, insisted that their five children each learn an instrument.
Zoe McCormick is congratulated by Elizabeth Wirth for winning the Wirth Vocal Prize
Her involvement in local community theatre sparked a passion for singing, and at 15, she began formal vocal training, which led to a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Burman University in 2023.
First exposed to opera at age 16, its combination of music and drama left a deep impression on McCormick.
“The music is so powerful on top of these stories that have humour or tragedy,” she says. “It can’t not touch a person, I think. When you sit and watch an opera, something will touch you, even if you’re not an opera lover.”
Upon arriving in Montreal after completing her undergraduate degree, McCormick found herself participating in a much larger world of performance. Coming from a small community, she hadn’t fully envisioned the professional possibilities in the arts.
She found teachers and coaches at McGill who supported both her artistic development and her understanding of the career paths available to her. She credits Assistant Professor Tracy Smith Bessette, MMus’12, DMus’16, the coordinator of Schulich’s voice area, with nurturing her growth as an artist and helping her understand the practical side of the field. She also credits Schulich’s vocal coaches who helped her build the technical foundation she needs to communicate freely in performance.
“Zoe’s singing really struck me to the core when I first heard her,” says Smith Bessette. “I could somehow feel her humanity through the beauty of her tone and the nuanced way she delivered a musical phrase.”
At McGill, McCormick says she came to understand more clearly what opera asks of a singer. One of the hardest parts, she explains, is accepting that a voice develops over time and can’t be rushed.
“Honestly, I think the biggest challenge, probably for any musician, is patience,” she says. “As singers, we’re dealing with an instrument that develops as we age, so there is a factor that we physically cannot rush.”
The music is so powerful on top of these stories that have humour or tragedy. When you sit and watch an opera, something will touch you, even if you’re not an opera lover,” says McCormick.
That understanding also affects what she chooses to sing. McCormick is judicious about the pieces she takes on, focusing on the ones her range is made for.
“It’s a matter of knowing your capacity and choosing pieces that you can share generously and touch an audience with.”
McCormick says her experience as a violinist influences the way she approaches her singing. Her knowledge of the violin offers her a physical image for something singers can’t see.
“The voice is invisible,” McCormick says. “Being able to kind of imagine the bow on a string is sometimes a helpful physical image to bring into singing a phrase when it isn’t quite clicking.”
Opera has also required McCormick to learn how to work through texts in languages she doesn’t speak. She studies diction and translation and pays careful attention to the unique qualities each language brings to a line. She wants her performances to carry meaning to an audience, even when they don’t understand every word.
“The music has one rhythm and one colour, but every language has its own sort of rhythm within itself and its own set of colours,” McCormick says. “Getting to add that in on top of the music takes it to a whole other level.”
The Wirth competition required singers to present a varied program in at least three languages, including opera arias and smaller works for voice and piano, which McCormick says can tell meaningful stories in “little worlds.”
That sense of intimacy is part of what McCormick values about stage performance: the preparation, the collaborative process of shaping a piece and deciding how best to convey it, and the responsibility of bringing it to an audience that has offered its trust by coming to listen.
“It’s such an incredible privilege to get to share what I’m feeling and thinking in this music with people who are just there to receive it.”
McCormick’s Wirth Vocal Prize recital is scheduled for April 15, and she will also perform at the McGill Symphony Orchestra’s concert at the Maison symphonique on April 10 before heading west for her first professional contract in Calgary.
“This feels like a really meaningful moment,” she says. “I’m excited for what comes next.”