Christine Brandes

In the late '90s, Christine Brandes began establishing herself as an American soprano in the field of period (or "authentic") Baroque and Classical singing. She attended Ohio State University in Columbus, where she was told she would never have a career as a singer. At least four international record companies, several opera companies, and leading period-instrument organizations obviously disagree. She has sung with Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Arcadian Academy, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, Christopher Hogwood and the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, Andrew Parrott and the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, the Newberry Consort, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Favorite items in her repertory are Bach's Cantata, BWV 51 and Vivaldi's Laudate Pueri RV 601. On the operatic stage, she has appeared in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas; Handel's L'Allegro, Il Penseroso e Moderato; Rameau's Platée; Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice; Mozart's The Magic Flute (as Pamina) and The Marriage of Figaro (as Susanna). She has been adding new and twentieth-century music to her repertory, singing song cycles by Libbie Larson and Eric Moe, and premiering music of Augusta Read Thomas. She has participated in a project devoted to the music of seventeenth-century Italian composer Barbara Strozzi. Brandes is in demand on the international festival scene, appearing at the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, Tanglewood, Ravinia, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival. Her New York recital debut was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Introductions series. She has recorded for Harmonia Mundi USA, BMG, Koch International, and Dorian. She has moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.