Departments
Professional Development
Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education (Master of Education in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship; concentration in Arts & Learning)
The Juilliard School (Master of Music in Vocal Arts)
Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Bachelor of Music, Vocal Performance)
Awarded Child Protection Certificate from Harvard FXB Center for Health & Human Rights
Courses Taught
PDV 432: Teaching Artistry
PDV 434: Foundations of Music Teaching
Ensembles
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra (2018 & 2019)
New York Festival of Song (2018-2020)
Salzburger Landestheater (2020-2022)
Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg (2020-2022)
Opera Columbus (2020)
Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (2016-2018)
Q&A
What is your hometown?
San Francisco, CA
What are you passionate about outside of music?
Literature, child psychology, fitness, strategic board games, gluten-free baking, and spending meaningful time with friends.
Who were your major teachers?
Sanford Sylvan, Salvatore Champagne, and Dr. Louisa Penfold
What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?
Dr. Christopher Emdin's idea that "teaching is a performing art."
What question do you wish students would ask sooner rather than later?
What problems in the world feel urgent to me, and what’s one step I could take toward them?
What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?
Winning the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award in high school. It gave me the push to see myself as a "legitimate" musician and funded my conservatory auditions at a time I couldn’t otherwise afford them.
What was a turning point in your career?
Winning a fest position at the Salzburger Landestheater.
If you weren't a musician or teacher, what do you think you would be doing now?
I’d love to work as a screenwriter in children’s television.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
Bach, Debussy, and Schubert
From a music history perspective, what year and city are most important to you, and why?
The Bronx, 1973. The birth of hip hop proved that young people with limited resources could build something world-changing. As an educator, that spirit inspires me to create spaces where all students see their own creativity as a force for possibility.
What is your unrealized project?
Opening a free arts integration school in the Bay Area.
Biography
Olivia Cosío is an educator, vocalist, and co-founder of Sounds that Carry: Creative Impact Consultants, a firm that partners with arts & culture organizations to design and evaluate community arts programs.
Her work at the intersection of music, education, and community well-being has been featured by The Wallace Foundation Podcast, Psychology Today, and Opera Canada, and she’s spoken about creative placemaking at Berklee’s Career Jam, Juilliard’s Entrepreneurship Symposium, and the Chamber Music America National Conference. Previously, she served as Harvard’s Director of First-Year Arts Initiatives, leading campus-wide programming and contributing to the Harvard Art Museum’s inaugural Family Day.
Olivia is currently a Teaching Artist with the San Francisco Opera Guild’s Voices for Social Justice program, and she draws on her own upbringing in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district as she builds arts education opportunities that are joyful, rigorous, and accessible.
She holds a Master of Education in Arts and Learning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a Master of Music in Vocal Arts from The Juilliard School, and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from The Oberlin Conservatory.