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The American soprano, Janeanne Houston, spent her childhood years in Myanmar, India and the Philippine Islands. She received her education at Ottawa University and the University of Washington. She was a finalist and a second place winner in the Northwest Regional Metropolitan Opera auditions, and last year (2004?) a Crystal award winner in the Scammon vocal competition.
Janeanne Houston is a versatile performer especially noted for her finely honed skills as a concert artist. She has interpreted, with warmth, drama, and facility, a large body of vocal literature spanning the Baroque, Classic and Romantic eras to the present. She has been a guest artist with many distinguished choral and orchestral organizations including Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Northwest Sinfonietta, Eugene Symphony and Opera, and Spokane Symphony. Among the works she has performed many times are Verdi's Requiem, Johannes Brahms' Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, and W.A. Mozart's Mass in C-Minor. She has worked under the batons of many fine conductors including Gerard Schwarz, James DePreist, Sidney Harth, Dean Williamson, Charles Bontrager, Richard Sparks, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya, with whom she sang the Mater Gloriosa in the first Oregon performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8.
An active recitalist, Janeanne Houston has been a featured artist on numerous concert series programs and music festivals, including a recent residency for the prestigious Messiah Festival of Music and Art in Lindsborg, Kansas. Also at home on the opera stage, she sang the role of Mary with Jerome Hines in his Biblical opera I am the Way and has also shone in other operatic roles which include Blanche in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites and Micaela in Georges Bizet's Carmen.
Janeanne Houston's recordings include The Irish Songs of Sir Hamilton Harty, So Great a Joy 2001, and Living Mysteries 2002. In 2004 she released a new recording of premieres and commissions titled So Much Beauty. The Seattle Times called her performance "radiant-voiced" and Gramophone, "unfailingly responsive and dedicated." She was featured in a recording on the Albany label, Chamber Works, by North Carolina composer Dan Locklair, released October 2004. Her recordings have been broadcast on radio stations across the country, and were featured this year on the syndicated radio program With Heart and Voice and New Releases on Minnesota Public Radio.
Janeanne Houston is presently a member of the voice faculty at Pacific Lutheran University.
Recent performances (2005-2006?) include a solo recital on the Jacobsen series at the University of Puget Sound, and Sergei Rachmaninov's The Bells with Tacoma Symphony. |
