RESIDENT ARTIST
Kristina Bachrach
Soprano
Soprano Kristina Bachrach is emerging as a young artist confident in an extensive range of styles and languages. In 2017, she has joined MetroWest Opera Company as Musetta in their production of La femme bohème, an all-female take on Puccini's evergreen masterpiece, and has appeared with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn as soloist for Knoxville: Summer of 1915. She made her American Lyric Theater debut as part of their The New Crew event, presenting the initial hearings of works by Shuying Li and Andy Teirstein, and rejoins Bare Opera as Susanna in the two-hour Mozart / Rossini pastiche Figaro / Figaro! A frequent and beloved guest artist with the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS), she appears with them on a variety of French mélodie concert programs throughout the season. In the spring she will be an artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison where she will perform a recital and deliver a lecture on music by composers who were suppressed or killed during the Holocaust.
During the 2016–2017 season, Ms. Bachrach made her debut with the New York Choral Society at St. Patrick's Cathedral for the American premiere of Joseph Vella's The Hyland Mass, be produced by the Order of Malta, and joined the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) in repertoire ranging from Schubert Lieder to Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Songbook.
In recent seasons, Ms. Bachrach has become increasingly in demand for fulfilling prestigious artist residencies. In the spring of 2017, she joined the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar under the guidance of Stephanie Blythe and Alan Smith, to focus on the study and performance of song literature written by living composers. From there on she spent the summer in residence at North America's most prestigious chamber music retreat, the Marlboro Music Festival. As one of a select few singers invited to Marlboro, Ms. Bachrach studied and performed Lieder and chamber music alongside their world-renowned artist roster.
Ms. Bachrach served as a 2016 Artist in Residence at Yellow Barn Music Festival and at SongFest, where she gave a recital with composer John Musto at the piano. During the summer of 2015, she fulfilled a residency at the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum in Bolton Landing, NY, followed by a residency with the Lake George Music Festival, where she was featured in a performance of Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915. In 2014 she fulfilled a Winter Artist Residency at the Banff Centre (BAIR), focusing on the music of Elliott Carter and Judith Weir. As a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, Ms. Bachrach performed Pierrot Lunaire and was a featured soloist in the Mark Morris Dance Group's production of Dido and Aeneas. She enjoys a long-standing relationship with SongFest at Colburn, as a three-time recipient of the Marc and Eva Stern Fellowship, and has recorded songs of John Harbison for a new recording commemorating SongFest's twentieth anniversary.
Ms. Bachrach's concert activity includes recital performances of Milhaud's rarely-performed song cycle Alissa in the Masterworks Series at BargeMusic and at Notre Dame University, and performances of Schoenberg's Second String Quartet with the Cantata Profana Ensemble in New Haven and New York. Additional New York performances include her appearance with the Westchester Choral Society for their 2013 Christmas concert, her debut with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn as the soprano soloist in the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, and her Carnegie Hall debut with the Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra as the soprano soloist in the Bruckner Te Deum. Ms. Bachrach has performed in recital under the auspices of the Moravian Music Foundation and the Joy in Singing Foundation, and toured a Brahms Lieder program with the Brooklyn Art Song Society.
Equally adventurous as an operatic artist, Ms. Bachrach has appeared in new and rarely-performed repertoire with Thompson Street Opera (Louisville, KY), Gotham Chamber Opera, Opera Naples, and New York's Bare Opera, in whose inaugural production of L'enfant et les sortilèges she made her role debuts as the Princess and Shepherdess. Ms. Bachrach has fulfilled residencies with Nashville Opera, where she appeared as Clorinda in La Cenerentola and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, and Lyric Opera of Virginia, where she returned to perform Musetta in La bohème.
Ms. Bachrach holds degrees from Mannes College and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (summa cum laude). She is an award winner with the Ziering-Conlon Art Song Competition, American Prize Competition, the Philharmonic Society of Arlington’s Young Artist Competition, the Metrowest Opera Competition, and the Schuyler Foundation for Career Bridges.