This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Adoorajar (talk | contribs) at 09:22, 30 June 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 09:22, 30 June 2005 by Adoorajar (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee), is an American soprano.
Upshaw received a B.A. in 1982 from Illinois Wesleyan University (which later awarded her an honorary doctorate), and went on to study voice with Ellen Faull at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, earning her M.A. in 1984. She also attended courses given by Jan DeGaetani at the Aspen (Colorado) Music School. She was a winner of the Young Concert Artists auditions (1984) and the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (1985), and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Development Program.
Applauded in the opera houses of New York, Paris, Salzburg, and Vienna for her portrayals of the great Mozart roles, Upshaw is equally renowned for work in more remote corners of the repertory -- most recently, as the title character in Händel's Theodora, staged at Glyndebourne by Peter Sellars.
Her engagements with James Levine over the years led to a recording of Debussy songs released at the end of March 1997 on Sony Classical. She tours annually with piano accompanist Richard Goode; Margo Garrett and Gilbert Kalish are also long-standing partners. In the 1995-1996 season, Upshaw commissioned a staging of Bach's cantata BWV 199 by Peter Sellars as part of a three-concert series at New York's 92nd St. YMCA entitled Voices of the Spirit.
She rejoined Sellars in Paris in the fall of 1996 when she appeared as Anne in his new production of The Rake's Progress, a role she subsequently recorded.
Deeply involved with the music of our time, Upshaw is a particular champion of the music of John Harbison, though he is only one of a number of composers who have written for her. Her advocacy of contemporary music is evident in a broad range of solo recordings, among which are several Grammy- Gramophone-, and Edison Prize-winning discs.
Upshaw was a guest of President Clinton and Mrs Clinton on the NBC special, Christmas in Washington. The BBC presented a prime-time telecast of her 1996 London Proms Concert, "Dawn at Dusk", in which she performed songs from the American musical theater.
Source: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Upshaw-Dawn.htm
Awards and Recognitions
Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance:
- The Kronos Quartet & Dawn Upshaw for Berg: Lyric Suite (2004)