Karina Gauvin

Karina Gauvin’s outstanding performances have been recognized in prestigious competitions worldwide.

Her awards include the Virginia Parker Prize, and the Maggie Teyte Memorial Prize in London.  She was chosen “Soloist of the Year” by the International French Public Radio Community and in 2000 she was given an Opus Award as “Performer of the Year”.

Her repertoire ranges from the music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Benjamin Britten and beyond and she has sung with many major orchestras including Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, San Francisco Symphony, The Chicago Symphony, The new-York Philharmonic, as well as period instrument groups like Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Les  violons du Roy, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Accademia Bizantina and COmplesso Barocco.

On the operatic or concert stage, she has performed with conductors as diverse as Michael Tilson-Thomas, Charles Dutoit, Kent Nagano, Semyon Bichkov, Roger Norrington, Alan Curtis, Bernard Labadie and Christophe Rousset. Also active as a recitalist, she has collaborated with several chamber music ensembles and with pianists : Marc-André Hamelin, Michael McMahon and Roger Vignoles.

Karina gauvin was also featured in the title role of Handel’s Alcina with Les Talens Lyriques with conductor Christophe Rousset and the title role in Georg Conradi’s opera  Ariadne for the Boston Early Music Festival.

A prolific recording artist with more than twenty releases to her credit, Karina Gauvin has been nominated consistently for the Juno Award, and twice for the Grammy, over the past decade. She won the Juno in 2001 and 2003 with Handel’s Silete Venti / Apollo e Daphne and Mozart’s Requiem with Les Violons du Roy, respectively. Her collection of French art songs with pianist Marc-André Hamelin, titled Fête galante, received the 2000 Opus award for Best Vocal Recording and was selected as Chamber Music America’s  Recording of the Year. More recently, her characterization of Manlio in Vivaldi’s opera Tito Manlio on the Naïve label with the Accademia Bizantina and Ottavio Dantone was called “riveting” by Opera News.

She also completed several well-received recordings for Deutsche Grammophon label of Handel’s operas Tolomeo, Alcina and Ezio with Alan Curtis and Complesso Barocco. In 2009 she was nominated for a second time at the Grammys for her recording of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché. Her most recent solo album consists of britten’s Illuminations with Les Violons du Roy on ATMA label. For that label she also recorded arias from Nicola Porpora’s operas and “Handel Arias” and “Purcell” CDs.

In spring 2011 was released a recording of Ariodante with Alan Curtis and Complesso Barocco for Virgin Classics as well as a European tour (London, Paris, Baden-Baden).

On staged, she did her debuts in Montréal Opéra House with the role of Pamina in The Magic Flute.

Among her last engagements, we cite: Handel’s Messiah with the New-York Philharmonic, Malher’s Symphony n°2 with the San Francisco Symphonic orchestra,St John
Passion with Chicago Symphony. She also appears in Rinaldo with Accademia Bizantina in Paris and Cologne,  with Andrea Marcon Juditha Triumphans at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo at Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris a French music recital at the Paris’s Opera Comique etc.

Future engagements include: appearances with Rotterdam Symphony Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Princess in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges), Johannes Passion with Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie in Carnegie Hall, Debussy’s Martyre de St Sébastien with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas, Ravel’s Shéhérazade with Anima Eterna, Handel Giulio Cesare (Cleopatra) with Alan Curtis and Il Compesso Barocco for a Auropean tour etc.

Last
update July 2011