Upshaw, Dawn

Description

Autograph ID: 5003
Condition: Very good
Description: “(b. 1960) American soprano, recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary. Many composers, including Osvaldo Golijov (the highly acclaimed chamber opera “Ainadamar” and song cycle “Ayre”), John Harbison (opera “The Great Gatsby”), John Adams (nativity oratorio “El Niño”), and Kaija Saariaho (Grawemeyer Award-winning opera “L’Amour de Loin”), have written for her, and her artistic achievements are extensive. In 2007 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She was a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions (1984) and the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (1985), and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Development Program. Since her start in 1984, Upshaw has made more than 300 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera. She came to international fame with her 1993 million-selling recording, with David Zinman, of the hauntingly powerful “Symphony No 3 (the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)” by Henryk Gorecki. In the past decade she has premiered 25+ new works and in 2009 premiered David Bruce’s song cycle “The North Wind was a Woman” at the gala opening of the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Centre’s season. She was a guest of President 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. Her engagements with James Levine over the years led to a 1997 recording of Debussy songs. She has worked with Peter Sellars many times, including his staging of Händel’s “Theodora” at Glyndebourne, his 1996 Paris production of Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress” (part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s month-long residency at the Théâtre du Châtelet), a staging of Bach’s cantata “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut” presented in the 1995-96 season at New York’s 92nd Street Y, and the Salzburg Festival production of Messiaen’s “Saint François d’Assise” (1998). Upshaw joined the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as Artistic Partner beginning with the 2007-08 season, and is Artistic Director of the Graduate Program in Vocal Arts at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. She also is a faculty member at the Tanglewood Music Center. She received a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (The Atlanta Symphony and Chorus with Dawn Upshaw for Golijov: Ainadamar -Fountain of Tears); 2003 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance (The Kronos Quartet & Dawn Upshaw for Berg: Lyric Suite); 1991 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist (Dawn Upshaw, artist for The Girl with Orange Lips -Falla, Ravel, etc.); 1989 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist (Dawn Upshaw, artist for Knoxville: Summer of 1915-music of Barber, Menotti, Harbison, Stravinsky).

SP, 10 x 8 IMG Artists promotional glossy b&w bust portrait, photo by Deborah Feingold.”
Type: Photograph