Faculty Recital: Joel Ayau, Piano with Jennifer Zetlan, Soprano

Artist(s)

Soprano Jennifer Zetlan is internationally recognized for her artistry and captivating stage presence, known for being “persuasive and powerful”, “flawless” (The New York Times), and a “tour de force” (Wall Street Journal). This season, Ms. Zeltan sings Tzeitl in Tevye’s Daughters and Madame Alice in Working for the Macbeths (American Lyric Theatre InsightALT series), joins Opera Saratoga as Helen in a workshop of The Other Side of Silence, sings in a concert with Cecilia Chorus of New York at Carnegie Hall, and presents a recital of Libby Larsen’s The Magdalene with Brooklyn Art Song Society. Upcoming engagements will include singing Chava in Fiddler on the Roof with Cincinnati Opera and Handel's Messiah with Oratorio Society of New York. 
     In recent seasons, she sang Eurydice in Orpheus & Erica (Victory Hall Opera) and as Trujamán in El retablo del maese Pedro at the Kennedy Center (PostClassical Ensemble). She gave the world premiere of Tribute to the Angels, (Talea Ensemble) and sang Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Brooklyn Art Song Society, Riverside Orchestra). Roles include covering Queen Tye in Akhnaten, covering Little Stone in Eurydice, and singing the 2nd French actress in War and Peace, Xenia in Boris Godunov, Bloody Child in Macbeth, and Rebecca in the premiere of Two Boys (The Metropolitan Opera); Gilda, Musetta, Woglinde, and The Forest Bird (Seattle Opera), Pamina (Charlottesville Opera and Nashville Opera), Sardula in Menotti’s The Last Savage (Santa Fe Opera), Spring in The Fairy Queen (Staatstheater Stuttgart), Laoula in L’étoile (New York City Opera), Nannetta in Falstaff (Juilliard Opera Center), Ginsburg in Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg (Opera Carolina, Opera Grand Rapids, Opera Delaware), Xenia in Boris Godunov (San Francisco Symphony), and soprano soloist in Carmina Burana (Kansas City Symphony). Ms. Zetlan has originated title roles in Ellen West, Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt, and Jane Eyre, and sung in premieres with the Aspen Music Festival and Juilliard Opera Center, ART in Boston and BAM in New York, Ojai Festival and Carnegie Hall, On Site Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Gotham Chamber Opera and Opera Philadelphia, and Seattle Opera. She has also appeared on Broadway as Shaindel in Bartlett Sher’s Fiddler on the Roof.
     On the concert stage, she has performed Kaija Saariaho’s Lonh and Woglinde in Das Rheingold (New York Philharmonic), soprano soloist in Bruckner’s Te Deum and Mozart’s Mass in C minor (Oratorio Society of New York) and at Carnegie Hall for a concert. Zetlan has been heard in recital with her husband, pianist David Shimoni, as well as pianists Martin Katz and Ricky Ian Gordon. She released her first solo album in collaboration with Mr. Gordon at the piano. Ms. Zetlan is on the voice faculty of the Mannes College of Music.