Krista River, mezzo-soprano

Winner, 2004 Concert Artists Guild International Competition

www.kristariver.com

Praised by The New York Times for possessing a “shimmering voice…with the virtuosity of a violinist and the expressivity of an actress,” mezzo-soprano Krista River is a winner of the 2004 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and is also a 2007 grant recipient from the Sullivan Foundation.  In the 2009-2010 season, she performs Copland’s Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Messiah with the Cambridge Community Chorus and Julius Röntgen’s Lyrische Gänge with the Boston Chamber Music Society.  Ms. River will appear in recitals across the country at venues such as Symphony Space’s Thalia Theater in New York, the Breckinridge Music Festival in Breckinridge, CO, and McCray Recital Hall in Pittsburg, KS.  In January, she will perform Brahms’ Zwei Gesänge at Jordan Hall in Boston with violist Roger Tapping and pianist Judith Gordon.

Highlights of Ms. River’s 2008-2009 season included return engagements with the North Carolina Symphony (Bach’s Christmas Oratorio),Boston Cecilia (Bach’s B Minor Mass), the Harrisburg Symphony (the title role of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe), the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra (Remembrance by Jean Belmont) and Emmanuel Music (Bach’s St. Matthew Passion). Other performances included recitals and chamber music in Cold Spring Harbor, NY, with the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society and at the Asociación Nacional de Conciertos in Panama City.  In June, she was a featured performer at the International Water and Life Festival in Qinghai, China.

Recent opera roles include Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Mercury Baroque in Houston, Cherubino in a semi-staged production of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro with the North Carolina Symphony, Annio in La clemenza di Tito with Opera Boston(about which the Boston Herald said “…River offered perhaps the most purely delightful singing of the evening”), Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Opera Aperta, the Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors with the Santa Fe Symphony, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Crested Butte Music Festival, Nancy in Albert Herring with Red House Opera, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel with Opera Southwest and Anna I in Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins with Intermezzo Opera.  She has also performed concert versions of Handel’s Orlando (Medoro) with Boston's Emmanuel Music and Berg’s Wozzeck (Margret) with the New England Philharmonic.

Recent orchestral engagements include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with theHandel & Haydn Society, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Harrisburg Symphony,Duruflé’s Requiem with the York Symphony, Messiah with the Charlotte Symphony, Dvorak’s Requiem with the Florida Orchestra, de Falla's El Amor Brujo with the Boston Symphony, Handel’s Israel in Egypt, Schumann’s Genoveva, and Bach’s St. John Passion with Emmanuel Music, and Telemann’s St. Matthew Passion with the Pittsburgh Bach and Baroque Ensemble.

Krista River has performed chamber music as a guest artist at John Harbison’s Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, Music from Salem, the Saco River Festival, Meeting House Music Festival on Cape Cod, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Maine.  A contemporary music advocate, Ms. River has given the world premieres of several new works by numerous composers including Howard Frazin, Thomas Schnauber, Herschel Garfein and Paul Preusser.  She created the role of Genevieve in Brian Hulse’s chamber opera The Game at the Kennedy Center, as part of their Millennium Stage series. She sang the world premiere of Scott Wheeler’s Turning Back at  her 2008 solo recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and is featured in Wheeler’s opera The Construction of Boston, recorded live with Boston Cecilia and released in March 2008 on Naxos Records.

Krista River began her musical career as a cellist, earning her music degree at St. Olaf College.  She resides in Boston and is a regular soloist with Emmanuel Music’s renowned Bach Cantata Series.