Sandra Flores-Strand

Biography

Sandra Flores-Strand, Librettist and Mezzo-Soprano, is based in the US and Canada. Sandra
writes on a variety of topics but feels compelled to tell stories with a focus on marginalized
communities, particularly Latin American representation on stage, including the ongoing migrant
crisis, a subject that hits close to home.
Sandra recently received a Research and Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on
the Arts to develop her children’s opera The Fallen Crown with a workshop scheduled in 2023.
She is currently collaborating with composer Laura Jobin-Acosta, a recipient of the Opera
America IDEA Residency, on La Alcaldesa, an opera about Doña Fela, the first female of Mayor
of San Juan, Puerto Rico. La Alcaldesa will have a premiere workshop at Opera America in
Spring 2022. Sandra’s mini song cycle, Speak, But Don’t Speak: Diminished Women, premiered
in March 2021 at the Arizona Women’s Collaborative Concert set by Emily Smith and Lillian
Salter. Her one act opera The Beneficiary, composed by Charles Zoll and her song cycle, Come
Again: Poems Based on Recurring Dreams, composed by William Clay, are scheduled to
premiere in 2022 and her work Cantata for the Asylum Seeker is currently being set by
composer Alfonso Molina.
As a singer, Sandra has performed with Phoenix Opera, Mercury Opera, Arizona Voices, Voices
of Vienna, the Phoenix Opera Orchestra, Brott Opera Festival, Flagstaff Light Opera, Lambs
Players Theater, Lyric Opera San Diego and more. She participated in apprentice programs
with Red River Lyric Opera, the Harrower Opera Workshop, Angel's Vocal Arts, Flagstaff in
Fidenza and the Royal College of Music - London. As a theater technician, she worked with
Lambs Players Theater, the Old Globe Theater San Diego, the Lyceum Theater, the Balboa
Theater, the Asian American Repertory Theater, and Starlight Opera. Sandra also holds
directing credits with NAU Opera under the mentorship of Kay Walker Castaldo and Nando
Schellen.