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The American soprano, Rachel Evangeline Barham, critically acclaimed as "consistently outstanding," is known for her musical intelligence and interpretation in repertoire ranging from song to stage. In addition to her specialty in Baroque music, she is a favorite of contemporary composers due to her vocal versatility and sensitivity. Premieres include Maurice Saylor's controversial and award-winning song set Laudis Corona (composed for her), and his opera Unfinished Sermons (a parable for church performance), as well as Andrew Earle Simpson's song cycle Seeds of Vengeance. She created the roles of Isychia in Simpson's opera The Furies and Gloria and The Guardian's Sister in Saylor's operatic silent film score Teddy at the Throttle with the Snark Ensemble. In 2009, she performed the role of Medea and others in a concert of selections from operas by Mikis Theodorakis in New York City, representing the American premiere of the works.
Rachel Barham's stage roles include Olga in Lehár's The Merry Widow with the Washington Savoyards; First Spirit in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with Summer Opera Theatre Company; Attendant in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Opera Alterna; and Cleopatra in George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare and Poppea in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at Catholic University, where she returned to co-direct Poppea in 2009. Concert and oratorio work includes G.F. Handel's Brockes-Passion, HWV 48; Carissimi’s Jephte; Mozart's arrangement of G.F. Handel's Der Messias; and Reinhard Keiser's Markus-Passion (actually composed by Friedrich Nicolaus Brauns) with Cantate Chamber Singers; Haydn's Creation at American University; and solo appearances with the Great Noise Ensemble in Steve Reich's Tehillim, Armando Bayolo's Towards Golgotha, and Louis Andriessen's M is for Man, Music, Mozart (as a "non-classical soprano"); as well as numerous solo recitals.
In 2007, Rachel Barham performed tributes for the 300th anniversary of Dietrich Buxtehude's death at the American Guild of Organists' Mid-Atlantic regional convention in Baltimore and on the Westminster Presbyterian Organ Concert Series in Charlottesville, Virginia. She also made a solo appearance at the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian) and sang with Opera Lafayette at Strathmore and at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater in New York City. Recent performances include a Christmas recital in Honolulu, Hawaii. |
