Grammy® Award winning American soprano Christine Brewer’s appearances in opera, concert and recital are marked with her own unique timbre, at once warm and brilliant, combined with a vibrant personality and emotional honesty reminiscent of the great sopranos of the past. Her range, golden tone, boundless power, and control make her a favorite of the stage as well as a sought-after recording artist.
Highlights of Christine Brewer’s 2009-10 season are numerous and include performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Lorin Maazel, the New World Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Dallas Symphony and Jaap van Zweden, Britten’s War Requiem with the Toronto Symphony, and excerpts from Wagner operas with the BBC Philharmonic with Donald Runnicles, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, and at the Ravinia Festival. In addition to premiering a new work by David Carlson with the Marin Symphony, Ms. Brewer will also sing Strauss’ Four Last Songs with Jeffrey Kahane and the Colorado Symphony, as well as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the New York Philharmonic and their new music director, Alan Gilbert. This season also brings a highly anticipated reprisal of Ms. Brewer’s critically acclaimed portrayal of Lady Billows in Albert Herring at Santa Fe Opera. An avid recitalist, Ms. Brewer will be heard on the stages throughout North America in venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, Cal Performances, Berkeley, the University of Florida, Spivey Hall, University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, the Schubert Club, the Baldwin-Wallace Art Song Festival, and in a presentation by the Los Angeles Philharmonic among many others.
On the opera stage, Ms. Brewer is highly regarded for her striking portrayl of the title role in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, which she has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra de Lyon, Théâtre du Châtelet, the Santa Fe Opera, the English National Opera, and the Opera Theater of St. Louis. Garnering critical acclaim with each role, Ms. Brewer has performed Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the San Francisco Opera, Gluck’s Alceste with the Santa Fe Opera, the Dyer’s Wife in Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Paris Opera, and Lady Billows in Britten’s Albert Herring at the Santa Fe Opera. She is also celebrated for her work on lesser known operas such as the title roles in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with the Edinburgh Festival, the Rio de Janeiro Opera, and Madrid Opera and Strauss’s Die ägyptische Helena with the Santa Fe Opera. A stunning recitalist, in addition to her many appearances at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, Ms. Brewer has graced Lincoln Center’s “Art of the Song” series at Alice Tully Hall. Other appearances include the Kennedy Center in Washington. D.C., Spivey Hall in Georgia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Mondavi Center in California. Her unique voice has been featured at the Gilmore, Ravinia, and Cleveland Art Song festivals.
Ms. Brewer has worked with many of the most notable conductors of our day including Pierre Boulez James Conlon, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Antonio Pappano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Robert Shaw, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas. Frequently sought after to sing the great symphonic works of Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Mahler, Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner, Janáček, and Britten, Ms. Brewer has sung with the philharmonics of New York and Los Angeles, and the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., St. Louis, San Francisco, Boston, and Dallas. In Europe, she counts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Staatskapelle Berlin, Gewandhaus Leipzig, and Toulouse Orchestra as regular partners. In addition, she has made appearances with the Malaysia Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony. Typical of this versatile artist, she has also been invited to perform in special engagements such as the re-opening of Covent Garden with Placido Domingo for TRH Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, a concert of Handel with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a gala performance of Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and long-time collaborator Donald Runnicles.
Ms. Brewer’s recordings include a contribution to Hyperion’s prestigious Schubert series with pianist Graham Johnson; the Janáček Glagolitic Mass and Dvořák Te Deum with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (Telarc); Dvořák Stabat Mater (Naxos); and two recital recordings entitled "Saint Louis Woman” and “Music for a While, ” produced and released by Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Recent recordings include a live recital disc from Wigmore Hall (Koch); Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Strauss’s Opera Scenes, and Mozart’s Requiem with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (Telarc); Fidelio in German with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live); Barber’s Vanessa (Chandos) with the BBC Symphony and the Grammy® Award-winning Bolcom Songs of Innocence and Experience (Naxos), both conducted by Leonard Slatkin; Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (EMI) with Sir Simon Rattle conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; a disc of lieder for Hyperion's new Richard Strauss series with pianist Roger Vignoles; Fidelio in English and “Great Operatic Arias” (Chandos) with the London Philharmonic; and Britten’s War Requiem with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Kurt Masur (LPO Live).
