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The the American-born, UK-domiciled soprano, April Fredrick, initially pursuing violin, abd began to train in voice at University of Northwestern St Paul with Catherine McCord-Larsen, where her time as a violinist behind the baton shaped her attitude toward the role of a soloist as part the ensemble. Her layered, in-depth preparation and close attention to fine vocal colour were honed by her time in the College Choir, and her life-long preoccupations with Gustav Mahler and the effect of World War I on British music and culture and her commitment to music in all its cultural and historical dimensions were also fired by her music history training there. She obtained there her Bachelor of Music degree in Music, English, Spanish from (1998-2002). She went on to gain an Master of Music degree in Voice Performance (2003-2005) and PhD at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied with Jane Highfield, Iain Ledingham and Dominic Wheeler. She sang regularly with the RAM Lyric Song Salon, the RAM Historical Performance ensembles, Academy composers, and in master-classes with James Bowman, Robert Tear, Graham Johnson, Rudolf Jansen, and Roger Vignoles, with whom she went on to do a full course in lieder and chanson with Vignoles in Austria. She now studies with Jacqueline Straubinger-Bremar.
April Fredrick is a soprano with a passion for nuance and text which gets to the heart of both music and character. Equally at home on the opera stage, concert hall and recording studio, she has recently premiered the title role of John Joubert’s opera Jane Eyre in a live concert recording for SOMM (due for release in March 2017). With a growing reputation for championing new works, she has also premiered Philip Sawyers’ Songs of Loss and Regret, and Laurence Osborn’s Micrographia with the Riot Ensemble. Her discography features several premiere recordings including Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Copland’s Eight Songs of Emily Dickinson. She returns to her beloved Strauss’ Vier Lezte Lieder in 2017 in Manchester, Blackburn and Nottingham as well as to Knoxville with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and J.S. Bach's St John Passion (BWV 245) with Dei Gratia Baroque Ensemble.
April Fredrick has been fortunate to work with an incredible array of fine musicians from a wide variety of traditions, from Jacek Kaspzcyk and the Warsaw Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra to folk musician Joe Jencks, from Graham Johnson and the Young Songmakers Almanac to David Parry and the English Chamber Orchestra, from Dei Gratia Baroque Ensemble (of which she is a founding member) to Indian classical musicians through the innovative Blake-Nazrul project of Song in the City. She is a regular collaborator with pianists Mark Bebbington and Amy de Sybel, the Orchestra of the Swan, English Symphony Orchestra, Kensington Chamber Orchestra, Nottingham Harmonic Choir, Leicester Bach Choir, Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, and Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, and she has worked and recorded with Coro Cervantes (specialising in Iberian and Latin American music) and the Elysian singers. She was also involved in the launch of the Beethoven Orchestra for Humanity.
April Fredrick is equally at home on the opera and concert stage, in both grand and intimate settings, endeavouring to bring a chamber aesthetic and personal connection to every performance. Her recent world premiere of the role of Jane in Jane Eyre with the English Symphony Orchestra, described as ‘astonishing and luminous’ (Bachtracks), ‘utterly riveting, with a terrific dramatic sense’ (Music and Vision), and ‘simply breathtaking’ (Musical Opinion), was voted Classical Music Magazine’s Premiere of the Year. On the opera stage, she has sung the Countess in Opera de Baugé’s production of W.A. Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Königin der Nacht in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte for Woodhouse Opera, and ‘Medea’ in George Frideric Handel's Teseo at Piggott’s. In recital, she has sung with Graham Johnson in the Young Songmakers Almanac, Mark Bebbington at the Little Missenden and John Ireland Festivals, with William Vann at the English Song Festival, and with Amy de Sybel in a programme of all Ivor Gurney songs for Remembrance Day at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres.
Her orchestral collaborations include Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations and Dmitri Shostakovich’s intense, uncompromising Symphony No. 14 with the Orchestra of the Swan, Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Été with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Bachianias Brasilieras No. 5 and Gorécki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs with the Beethoven Orchestra for Humanity, and she has sung Strauss’s Four Last Songs, S. Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, G. Mahler's Symphony No. 4 and W.A. Mozart's C Minor Mass with ensembles throughout the UK. Through her ensemble D’Accord, she is also pioneering a new wave of house concerts aiming to re-invent the soiree for modern times.
April Fredrick is committed to contemporary music, having premiered works by Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Paul Evernden, Martin Suckling, John Hawkins, Laurence Osborn, Kerry Yong, Alan Laing, and Gloria Coates, and she is also passionate about site-specific and devised works that bring familiar repertoire into fresh contexts, singing in events with ensemble Multiplicity (of which she is also a founding member) mingling artwork and music on transformation and decay, a promenade event at Clissold Park and House exploring the disappearing pastoral through music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rebecca Clark, Arthur Bliss and Gustav Holst, pairing historical narration and sensory interaction.
April Fredrick is a founding member of Dei Gratia Baroque Ensemble, which specialises in innovative period performances exploring the incredible wealth of religious Baroque music in its original context of contemplation and worship. Her other Baroque work includes the J.S. Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243) with the Leicester Bach Choir, J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) with the Elysian Singers and Paradiso Baroque, Dietrich Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri with Laurence Cummings and the RAM Historical Performance Department, and the Scarlatti Stabat Mater with the City of London Choir under Hilary Davan Wetton.
April Fredrick also devised and premiered That Fragile Beauty, a multimedia, narrated performance exploring the experience and legacy of World War I through the lens of Ivor Gurney’s poems, letters and music and Paul Nash’s artwork as well as The Life That Suits Me Well, an immersive, multimedia event about the marriage and lives of Richard and Pauline Strauss.
April Fredrick's performance on her first recording on the SOMM label, of S. Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Copland’s Eight Songs of Emily Dickinson, was described by Radio 3 CD Review as A ‘winnocent sound, fantastically clear diction and absolutely pure intonation’, Gramophone concluding that ‘not the slightest distance can be felt between her and the texts’, with MusicWeb calling her singing ‘humane and vulnerable: a beautiful voice, shining and round, celestial on the high notes and rich on the low ones…creamy timbre and velvety strength’. Her second release for SOMM was a solo disc of John Ireland songs with pianist Mark Bebbington, who has carved a place for himself as one of this generation’s finest interpreters of J. Ireland’s work and that of his contemporaries. Their collaboration was described as ‘hauntingly beautiful’, ‘atmospheric and sultry’ and ‘consistently commanding’, with ‘beautifully shaped vocals, admirable diction and a lovely lyric sympathy for J. Ireland’s music, always finely partnered by Mark Bebbington.’ Her third disc for SOMM will be the world premiere recording of Jane in John Joubert’s opera Jane Eyre which she premiered live in Birmingham in October 2016, and her world premiere recording of Philip Sawyers' Songs of Loss and Regret is also forthcoming on Nimbus.
Future work includes a gala with the English Symphony Orchestra at Huntingdon Hall, Philip Sawyers' Songs of Loss and Regret at St John’s Smith Square, also with the ESO, S. Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra in the Pitville Pump Room, Strauss' Four Last Songs with the Blackburn Symphony Orchestra, R. Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, Johannes Brahms' Requiem and Strauss' Four Last Songs with the Nottingham Harmonic Choir and Orchestra da Camera, J.S. Bach's St John Passion (BWV 245) with Dei Gratia Baroque Ensemble, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Cambridgeshire Choral Society. She is also developing a fully staged version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 with Matthew Sharp and the ESO as well as a staged version of Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben. She currently lives in London, England. |
