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Rebekkah Graves
For soprano Rebekkah Graves, studies in Voice Performance
at Northern Illinois University included art song and opera,
as well as early music performance practice and vocal pedagogy.
Ms. Graves has performed in many solo recitals since graduation,
in Illinois, North Carolina, San Francisco, Los Angeles
and Seattle. As a member of the San Francisco Chamber Singers,
she participated in a recording of Uses of Music in
Uttermost Places, a work by San Francisco-based composer
Elinor Armer (a Koch International CD), and has been named
"Best Actress in a Musical" by the San Francisco
Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle for a role she created
for an original work with the Lamplighters, a Light Opera
repertory theatre in San Francisco.
She has performed roles in several operas and light operas,
including Princess Laoula in L'Etoile (The Star) by Emmanuel
Chabrier, the title role in Princess Ida by Gilbert and
Sullivan, the Second Prioress (Madame Lidoine) in Poulenc’s
Dialogues des Carmelites (Dialogues of the Carmelites),
Helen in Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters by Ned Rorem,
as well as numerous other smaller roles.
Recently, she completed a successful performance of Dvorak's
dramatic Stabat Mater as the soprano soloist with
Orchestra Seattle and the
Seattle Chamber Singers, directed by George Shangrow,
as well as a brief solo performance with the Seattle Philharmonic
Orchestra, directed by Marsha Mabrey. She also appeared
again with the Seattle Philharmonic in early February, singing
Mallika's line in the "Flower Duet" from Lakmé
by Leo Délibes. Ms. Graves' is currently preparing the entire
collection of songs by French composer Charles Bordes, a
near-contemporary of Debussy's, for recording in the near
future.
Her instructors have included Myron Myers, a highly acclaimed
bass in Chicago; Genia Las, an internationally hailed mezzo-soprano;
Edward Sayegh, a San Francisco-based instructor; currently
she studies with Seattle teacher Marianne Weltmann, who
can boast a successful career of her own as well as many
successful students.
Critics have called Ms. Graves "…a gorgeous soprano
who can act." "…this vivacious soprano…"
and "...ample and ringing. Lovely!." Ms. Graves
continues to appear in recitals and as soloist with orchestras
in the Seattle area.
Ms. Graves has also been singing jazz nearly as long as
she has classical music. Under the careful teaching of some
great jazz musicians, including Scotty Wright in San Francisco
and Robert Murphy in North Carolina, and studying the work
of such jazz greats as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella
Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and others, she has successfully
made the transition from classical singing to jazz and back
again at will. She can be heard in the background
vocals on a recording by Los Caribes, a Buffalo-based Latin
jazz group led by Michael
Colquhoun, and is in the process of making some new
recordings of her own.
More information, with some audio samples, are available
at her
web site.
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