Momoko Tanno

Momoko Tanno is a singer/actor/educator who has been actively performing in the Twin Cities, nationally, and abroad.

The Pickup Truck Opera Volume 1: The Odyssey with Mixed Precipitation

Last season, she sang all over MN with the Pick Up Truck Opera of the Odyssey by Mixed Precipitation starring as Penelope and Minerva singing Monteverdi and Dolly Parton songs. Her opera and theater credits include Susanna in Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Juan Giovanni, Frasquita in Carmen with the Tony Award-Winning Theater de la Jeune Lune, American Repertory Theater, and Berkeley Repertory Theater, Singer and Kurogo in M. Butterfly at the Guthrie, and Ensemble in Camelot at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres.

Figaro, Don Juan Giavonni and Carmen with Theatre de la Jeune Lune / Photo credit: Michal Daniel

She has performed opera, musical theater, oratorio, recitals, and spoken word in the Twin Cities, Japan, and Germany. Momoko is a member of NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and has taught voice at University of Wisconsin River Falls, MacPhail Center for Music, Breck School, Mahtomedi High School, Roseville High School, and St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and maintains her own private studio.

Women have loved before (text by Edna St. Vincent Millay, composed by Jake Hegge, Piano by Gregory Theisen)

Momoko has a Bachelor of Arts from Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan with the Dean’s Award and Master of Music from the University of Minnesota, privately studied with Camille Maurane, a legendary Baryton Martin in Paris for 3 years to master French and Mélodies Françaises, and Elizabeth Mannion, a legendary teacher of Jessye Norman for 15 years.

Japanese Songs

She has served as a member of the Community Advisory Board for Park Square Theater, a grant review panelist for Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the DEI Committee at MacPhail Center for Music, Anti-Racism workgroup with Mixed Precipitation, and serves as the Music Director for First Christian Church of St. Paul and a Glocal Musician Educator for ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America), and continues to work alongside others to cultivate a diverse and inclusive environment and culture where everyone can fully express oneself.

Recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant FY2013, FY2019, Community Cultural Partnership Grant FY2015 in which she co-created The Story of Crow Boy with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, McKnight Artist Grant at MacPhail Center for Music in FY2013 and FY2019. She has completed the Certification of Embodied Social Justice through EmbodyLab and became a Coalition for Asian American Leaders Making Our Voices Effective for Equity cohort in 2021.

The Story of Crow Boy at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater (with former LLAC member Masanari Kawahara) / Photo credit: Bruce Silcox

Momoko Tanno

Photo Credit: Leslie Mick Crane

Hear, see and learn more about Momoko on her website, and on her Facebook and Instagram pages. You can listen to her worship songs on YouTube.