Amy is a Chattanooga, Tennessee native who currently resides in Golden, CO, with her husband, son, miniature tiger (tabby), and 100lbs goldendoodle. Quickly gaining a reputation for her crystalline coloratura, relentless high notes, and witty theatrics, Amy compels audiences with her fearless artistry and attention to detail. As a guest artist with such Colorado companies as Opera Theatre of the Rockies, Opera Colorado, Loveland Opera Theatre, Boulder Opera, Opera Fort Collins, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Colorado Chamber Orchestra, The Larimer Chorale, and Parish House Baroque, Amy has become a go-to soprano on the Colorado circuit.
Possessing a special talent for all things high and florid, roles include Cunegonde, Susanna, Adina, Gilda, Lakmé, Frasquita, Thérèse, Mabel, Le Feu, and most recently Manon with Boulder Opera. She looks forward to performing the role of Belinda in Dido and Aeneas with Opera Fort Collins this June and the roles of Baby Doe in Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe with Loveland Opera Theatre and Younger Alyce in Glory Denied with Opera Theatre of the Rockies this fall.
In 2022 Amy’s desire to bring the transformative experience of live classical music to all types of people–young, old, and the physically and neuro divergent–led her to develop her own passion project: programming “Contemplative Concerts” during which audiences may enjoy the music in whatever way they choose: sitting, standing, lying down, coloring, knitting, walking through the space, or otherwise. Amy’s love of the French Impressionist repertoire combined with her feminist sensibilities led her to quite literally “dream up” the first program, Femmepressionist, a concert exclusively featuring works by women composers and women visual artists of the Impressionist style.
In the fall of 2022, Amy premiered the role of Hedy Lamarr in the revolutionary Instagram opera Hedy Lamarr: Snow White Under the Knife by composer Paul Elwood. Once released, the opera film will consist entirely of bite-sized one-minute-long scenes to be viewed specifically on social media.
Of Amy’s 2015 performance as Gilda alongside tenor René Barbera in Piedmont Opera’s Rigoletto, Joseph Newsome of Voix des Arts described her as a singer “who met every technical challenge unflinchingly…and commanded the audience’s sympathy with gestures and actions of emotional meaning.” She showed “starlit articulation” and created “an atmosphere of concentrated emotion as she unfurled a velvety ribbon of tone.” The critic went on to say that Amy was “heartbreakingly tender” in scenes with her stage father and in her performance of Gilda’s famed aria “Caro nome,” delivered “an intimate reverie that was distinguished with sparkling trills and crystalline high notes…Maples was inspired to vocalism of impeccable poise and time-stopping expressivity” and “the pathos of her phrasing in the final act was gripping.”
In the summer of 2011, Amy performed the dual leadings roles of Irma and Musette in a revival of Victor Herbert’s The Fortune Teller with The Ohio Light Opera and has since become the first soprano to both perform and record the work in its entirety. Regarding her recorded performance, Todd B. Solis of Opera News said: “A star vehicle needs a star, and Ohio Light Opera has one in Amy Maples. Maples’ soprano is supple and rich, her pitch true, her dictation and comic timing spot-on. She manages to assay her three characters, Irma, Fedor and Musette, with such vividness that the listener never has a doubt as to which character she is portraying at a given time.”
Likewise, in 2012, Amy became the first soprano to both perform and record the leading role of Mitzi in Sigmund Romberg’s Blossom Time. Her recording of Blossom Time with The Ohio Light Opera was released in early 2013.
An extremely versatile performer, Amy was named a semifinalist in the 2012 American Traditions Competition after dazzling audiences and judges with selections from the jazz, gospel, pop, opera, musical theater, and art song repertory. Other recent honors include winning the first ever NYIOP Anonymous Audition Project in 2021, 2nd place at the 2017 Denver Lyric Opera Guild Young Artist Competition, performing as a Regional Finalist in the 2012 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, as a finalist in both the 2010 and 2011 Orpheus Vocal Competition, and as a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Traditions Competition at the 2010 Savannah Music Festival. Amy was the 2014 recipient of the Pike’s Peak Opera League Career Grant Award.
Amy is also a talented voice over artist and audiobook narrator, voice teacher, weight lifter, and social media guru.
Amy received her MM in Voice Performance from Florida State University where she studied with tenor Stanford Olsen, after receiving her BM in Voice Performance at Lee University in her home state of Tennessee.