Jamie Van Eyck, mezzo-soprano
With polished, elegant vocalism and committed dramatic portrayals on-stage, American mezzo-soprano Jamie Van Eyck appeals to audiences and critics alike as a compelling young artist in opera and concert. This season, she makes her New York City recital debut with pianist Jocelyn Dueck in a performance sponsored by The Casement Fund.
She also sings performances with the Lexington Philharmonic, Clocks-in-Motion Percussion Ensemble, and Chicago’s Saint Charles Singers.
Her 2012 summer calendar includes debuts with the Princeton Festival and Bar Harbor Music Festival, as well as several concerts for the Bard SummerScape Festival, featuring Debussy’s Chansons’de’Bilitis. She recently returned to Madison Opera as Olga in Eugene’Onegin and sang recitals in repeat engagements for the Dallas Museum of Art and the Wolf Trap Foundation Discovery Series. She made her debut with the Five Boroughs Music Festival in the Manhattan premiere of the Five’Borough’Songbook.
In concert, Ms. Van Eyck sang Beethoven’s Symphony’no.’9 with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and Handel’s Messiah with the Phoenix Symphony. She made her Boston Lyric Opera debut as The Drummer in The’Emperor’of’Atlantis, and as Daughter in the premiere performances of AfterAImage. The Boston Herald praised her performance as, “beautifully acted and sung.” She returned to Utah Opera as Meg in Little’Women, giving a performance that Opera News called, “luminescent.” In concert, Jamie sang Beethoven’s Symphony’No.’9 with the American Symphony Orchestra, Messiah with The Colorado Symphony and The Lexington Philharmonic, and Mahler’s Symphony’No.’2’with The Madison Symphony Orchestra. 2011 saw the release of her second recording with Bridge Records of New York titled, Complete’Crumb’Edition,’Volume’1-. The disc has been praised as “consistently wonderful” and “not to be missed” by Classics’Today, as well as The’Classical’Review who deems the performance rich with “immense technical skill and musical panache.”
Jamie made her role and company debut as Cherubino in The’Marriage’of’Figaro for Opera Theater of Saint Louis, and appeared at the Bard SummerScape Festival in the role of Alkmene in Strauss’ Die’Liebe’der’Danae. She sang Mercédès in Carmen and Miss Jessel in The’Turn’of’the’Screw with Madison Opera, and reprised the roles of Dido and The Sorceress in Dido’and’Aeneas with The Mark Morris Dance Group and Kolobov Novaya Opera Theater on tour to Moscow for performances at The Golden Mask Festival. She has performed works by James Primosch and George Crumb with Orchestra 2001 of Philadelphia, with whom she is a frequent guest artist.
During her consecutive residencies at Wolf Trap Opera, she sang Dorabella in Così’fan’tutte, Dryade in Ariadne’auf’Naxos, and Melanto in Il’Ritorno’d’Ulisse’in’Patria, for which the Washington’Post called her “a standout!” She was also featured in Bernstein’s Mass with the Utah Symphony, and in the role of The Old Lady in Candide with The National Symphony Orchestra. Jamie made her Broadway debut in Jerome Kern’s Music’in’the’Air with the Encores! series at New York City Center. With the Santa Fe Opera, Ms. Van Eyck covered the role of Junon in Plateé and performed scenes as Sister Helen in Jake Heggie’s Dead’Man’Walking.
Among Ms. Van Eyck’s past concert performances are Handel’s Messiah with The Utah Symphony, Berlioz’s Les’Nuits’d’Été with City Music-Cleveland, Schönberg’s Peirrot’Lunaire with the New England Contemporary Ensemble, and Mahler’s Symphony’No.’2 and Das’Lied’von’der’Erde in Boston with The Harvard-Radcliffe Symphony. At Wolf Trap, Ms. Van Eyck has twice performed in recital with acclaimed pianist, Steven Blier. She was a soloist in This’Way’to’Broadway with Marvin Hamlisch and The National Symphony Orchestra, and she has been featured in multiple Pops concerts with conductor Keith Lockhart.
An avid proponent of new music, Ms. Van Eyck sang two world premiere performances at Carnegie Hall during the spring of 2009. She gave the premiere of Ned Rorem’sThree’Poems’of’Edna’St. ‘Vincent’Millay in Weill Recital Hall, and in Zankel Hall she sang the first performance of Helen’Enfettered, a piece written for her by young American composer, Kate Soper. At the Tanglewood Music Center’s Festival of Contemporary Music, she performed the role of Mama in the North American staged premiere of Elliott Carter’s What’Next? under the baton of James Levine. For her leading role, the Hartford Courant proclaimed that she “performed beautifully with exacting musical precision and strong charisma.” Her performance can be seen on the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s DVD release of the opera.