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The American soprano, Ann Monoyios, studied at Princeton University and with Oren Brown.
At the beginning of her career, Ann Monoyios sang concert performances in Baroque music with the Folger Consort in Washington DC. She made her stage debut with the Concert Royal of New York in Rameau's Les Fetes d'Hebe'. She made her European debut at the 1986 Göttingen Festival in George Frideric Handel's Tepsichore with the English Baroque Soloists conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. She appeared at the Opéra Comique Paris and Aix-en-Provence Festival 1987, in Lully's Sangaride (Atys) and Psyché. In 1990 she sang Elisa in W.A. Mozart's Il Re Pastore at the Nakamichi Festival of Baroque Music in Los Angeles. Further engagements in the early 1990's took her to Salzburg, Spoleto and Frankfurt.
Ann Monoyios concretises extensively throughout Europe, the Far East and North America in a wide variety of repertory including opera, oratorio, chamber music and recitals. Although she is primarily a specialist in the performance of Baroque and Classical music, her repertoire extends from J.S. Bach to Grieg, Benjamin Britten and de Falla.
In concert engagements, Ann Monoyios has collaborated with the leading Baroque specialists of the world including Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, John Eliot Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock, Philippe Herreweghe, Reinhard Goebel, Bruno Weil and Nicholas McGegan. She has been featured soloist on tours in Europe and the Far East with Tafelmusik Orchestra and can be heard as soprano soloist on their recordings of Haydn sacred works for Sony Vivarte, from which the recording of The Creation has been singled out for particularly high praise. She has been guest soloist with many symphony orchestras in North America, among them Montreal, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Oregon, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio, Edmonton and Calgary as well as the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.
As a Baroque specialist, Ann Monoyios has appeared throughout Europe in numerous productions of Baroque operas. Her most interesting collaborations have been performing Lully's Atys at the Paris Opera with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, G.F. Handel's Alcina with Jos van Immerseel in Antwerp and Purcell's Fairy Queen conducted by Trevor Pinnock in Lisbon. 2001 season took her to venues as varied as Stavanger Cathedral in Norway, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Tanglewood Festival. Most recently, she won critical acclaim for her portrayal of the title role in G.F. Handel's Almira at the Bremen Opera and in recording.
Ann Monoyios can be heard on many record labels, among them Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv, Sony Vivarte, EMI, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Erato, CBC, Decca/L'Oiseau Lyre, Capriccio, Opus 111, CPO, Nonesuch and Vox. Among her favourite recordings are J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) with John Eliot Gardiner for Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv, which she recorded at Snape Maltings, and Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, also with John Eliot Gardiner, recorded live in the Church of San Marco in Venice. Her disc of Johann Christian Bach's Endimione conducted by Bruno Weil has been named Echo Klassik's Best Record of the year 2000 in the Category of 17th and 18th Century Opera.
Ann Monoyios teaches privately and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and gives master-classes and lectures throughout North America and Europe on Baroque performance practice for singers. Among her pupils and/or singers who have attended her master-classes: Rebecca Claborn (Mezzo-soprano), Anna-Julia David (Soprano), Avital Dery (Mezzo-soprano), Gillian Keith (Soprano), Andreas Pehl (Counter-tenor), Jason Rylander (Tenor), Ross Tamaccio (Baritone).
In her spare time, she enjoys wilderness white-water canoeing above the Arctic Circle with her husband and daughter. |
