Momoko Tanno is a singer/actor/educator, who has been actively performing in the Twin Cities, nationally, and abroad. You can catch her performing 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. (Mixedprecipitation.org) Her opera and theater credits include Susanna in Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Juan Giovanni, Frasquita in Carmen in 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. She has performed opera, musical theater, oratorio, recitals, and spoken word in the Twin Cities, Japan, and Germany. Momoko is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and has taught voice at MacPhail Center for Music, Breck School, Mahtomedi High School, Roseville High School, and St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and now maintains her own private studio.

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.

She has also 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 continues to work alongside with others to cultivate an antiracist 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 a Coalition for Asian American Leaders Making Our Voices Effective for Equity cohort of 2021.


Photo by Leslie Mick Crane

Photo by Leslie Mick Crane

Momoko Tanno is a brash, lovely and enchantingly melodic Susanna
— Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle