Two time Grammy® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her 'plush-voiced mezzo-soprano' (The New York Times), and 'calmly commanding stage presence' (The New Yorker) has been heralded as 'a rising star' (Los Angeles Times), gracing the world’s top opera and concert stages.

Bridges has emerged as a leading figure in classical music’s shift toward conversations of inclusion and racial justice in the performing arts. In 2022 she was announced as one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders, and appeared with The National Philharmonic in the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s A Knee on the Neck that same year. Bridges led a highly successful panel on race and inequality in opera with the Los Angeles Opera that drew international acclaim for being a 'conversation of striking scope and candor' (The New York Times). Bridges was also featured in the Converse shoe brand’s All Stars Campaign for its Breaking Down Barriers collection, and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel for two episodes of the digital SOUND/STAGE series, and as part of the Global Citizen movement’s Global Goal campaign, a program which also included Coldplay, Shakira, Usher and more.

Bridges is a recipient of the prestigious 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence Award, a 2016 Richard Tucker Career Grant, first prize winner at the 2016 Francisco Viñas International Competition, first prize winner at the 2015 Gerda Lissner Competition, a recipient of the 2013 Sullivan Foundation Award, a 2012 Marian Anderson award winner, the recipient of the 2011 Sara Tucker Study Grant, the recipient of the 2009 Richard F. Gold Grant from The Shoshana Foundation, and the winner of the 2008 Leontyne Price Foundation Competition.