This article printed from BravaDiva.com.
All materials copyright 2002-2010 Gigi Mitchell-Velasco unless otherwise noted.
This article is available online at
http://www.BravaDiva.com/7_presskit/short_biography.html

SHORT BIOGRAPHY
For Program Booklets and Publicity

Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, Mezzo Soprano

Proclaimed “world-class in every aspect,” Gigi Mitchell-Velasco is among international artists of the world’s opera and concert stages. With a voice ideally suited to the German romantic repertoire, she has been praised by critics, colleagues and public alike for her interpretations of Mahler, Strauss and Wagner. Of her Mahler Kindertotenlieder, New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini wrote that she sang with a “dark-hued sound and elegance,” and Wall Street Journal called her “the most finished artist, sensitive to every nuance of the text.”  This April, Gigi made her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Frübeck de Burgos in Mendelssohn's Elijah at Boston's Symphony Hall and New York's Carnegie Hall.

Her extensive concert engagements include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Second, Third and Eighth Symphonies, Verdi’s Requiem, Bach’s Mass in B minor, Christmas Oratorio and St. Matthew Passion, Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, Dvorak’s Requiem and Stabat Mater, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Missa Solemnis and Mass in C, Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony, Berlioz’ Romeo et Juliette and L’Enfance du Christ, Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabeus, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Chansons Madècasses, de Falla’s El Amor Brujo and Siete canciones populares españolas, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder, Rihm's Memoria and Wagner’s Wesendoncklieder.

In opera, she portrayed Brangæne (Tristan und Isolde), Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier), Carmen, Maddalena (Rigoletto), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos), Fricka (Das Rheingold), Witch and Mother (Hansel and Gretel), Elizabeth Proctor (The Crucible), Orlovsky (Die Fledermaus), Federica (Luisa Miller), Parséïs (Esclarmonde) and Suzuki (Madama Butterfly).

She has performed with such conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas, Helmut Rilling, Jaap van Zweden, Hans Graf, Andrew Litton, Sarah Caldwell, Dimitrij Kitaenko, Eiji Oue, Andreas Delfs, Jahja Ling, Eve Queler, Joseph Rescigno, David Stahl, Gisèle Ben-Dor, Richard Buckley, Michael Christie, Andrew Clark, Thomas Conlin, Grant Cooper, John Daly Goodwin, Daniel Hege, Scott Allen Jarrett, Robert Page, Vjekoslav Sutej, Julian Wachner, Antony Walker and Benjamin Zander, in Carnegie Hall and Weill Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Konzert-Haus, Prague’s Dvorak and Smetana Halls, with the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Florida, San Diego, Charleston, West Virginia, Syracuse, Calgary, Prague Radio, Boston Philharmonic, Ural State Philharmonic, Martinú Philharmonic, the opera companies of Boston, Houston, Minnesota, Brauschweig (Germany), Prague, Florentine, Toledo, Providence, Opera Orchestra of New York, Washington Concert Opera, the music festivals of Newport, Wolf Trap, Prague Autumn, Grant Park, Colorado and Snowshoe, the choruses of New York, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Westerly.

Well-versed not only in German but in many other languages, she has sung many song recitals in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Filipino from New York to Manila and Singapore to Russia, including a number of them with her husband, tenor Noel Espíritu Velasco. Summer 2003 saw her debut at Newport Music Festival in Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and 14 other concerts of various works, mostly by Poulenc.

She has given master classes at Columbus’ Ohio State University, Binghamton University NY and the Bob Taylor Choral Festival in Little Rock AR, and adjudicated the 2004 Canadian Music Competitions in Toronto and the 2006 Bel Canto Vocal Scholarship Awards.

An ASV recording artist, Ms. Mitchell-Velasco can be heard singing E. Wolfgang Korngold’s Tomorrow, Einfache Lieder and Abschiedslieder on ASV’s CD DCA 1131. Visit her at www.BravaDiva.com.

• • •

Dated Material as of January 2010
For more information, visit www.bravadiva.com