Melody Moore has been growing as a singer under our eyes, here in the Bay Area, we can claim her as ours. She came here from Cincinnati to attend the SF Opera Merola program, a summer camp for future opera stars. She stuck around as an Adler Fellow, another learning program of the opera where the young singers get to act as understudy for the big name singers and play supporting roles in the main stage productions. She got rewarded with several roles there that she totally nailed: the countess in The Marriage of Figaro or Mrs Pinkerton in Butterfly. And the biggest role to come this fall, married on stage to Thomas Hampson in the world premiere of The Heart of a Soldier. Now she alternates gigs all over the country with more local events like an homage to Pauline Viardot with Lotfi Mansouri, cabaret with the SF Ballet, or concerts with the New Century Chamber Orchestra.

The NCCO concert happens tonight through Sunday in four locations around the bay, including Herbst theater on Saturday, and Melody will sing four Schubert Lieder. The rest of the program includes a Bach violin concerto by NCCO music director, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Mendelssohn's famed Octet. We chatted with Melody last week.