So-Chung Shinn is a managing director of the board of directors and chairman of the Patron Program of the Metropolitan Opera. She is also a board member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, American Friends of the English National Opera in London, and formerly served on the board of the Teatro alla Scala Association of America for La Scala in Milan. Previously, Ms. Shinn served as the chairman of the Met Opera’s Young Associates program, cultivating young opera enthusiasts in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Despite an unusually late start in vocal training, she enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music in 2017, earning a master’s degree in Classical Voice in 2019, a Professional Studies Certificate in 2021, a Professional Performance Diploma in 2024.

In 2022, she made her opera performance debut as Genovieffa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica in Italy. Since then, she has sung the roles of Olympia in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), Barbarina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), and the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). In 2025, she sang Mozart’s Exsultate jubilate and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with countertenor Siman Chung and the Giulia Venezia Friuli orchestra in Vicenza and Venice, Italy.

Ms. Shinn is also an active supporter of living American composers and has commissioned or underwritten works by Tod Machover, Ricky Ian Gordon, Raphael Fusco, Kim Sherman, Alistair Coleman, and others. Two especially noteworthy works include Machover’s Overstory Overture, which premiered at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in 2023 with Joyce DiDonato and the Sejong Soloists, and Gordon’s song cycle, Huit Chanson des Fleurs, featuring poetry by American poets Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Jane Kenyon, and Donald Hall, which premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2024 with Erin Morley and Gerald Martin Moore. She is currently developing her first original opera about Queen Dido of Carthage, scheduled to premiere in April of 2028.

As a former publishing professional, Ms. Shinn was the managing editor of Opera News and executive editor of Interior Design magazines, an editor of the Metropolitan Opera’s Season Book, contributor to Playbill, and freelance writer for various publications, including Town & Country Travel and Cookie magazines.

Additionally, Ms. Shinn was a co-host of The Portfolio television talk show and a voiceover artist. Her past community affiliations include the chairmanship of the Sejong Soloists chamber ensemble and board member of the Korean American Family Service Center.

In 2024, Ms. Shinn received a Woman of Grace award from the Office of the Mayor of New York City and was recognized the following year with a community leadership award from the Korean Consul General of New York.