Amanda Balestrieri, Soprano, was born and educated in England, and won two merit scholarships to Jesus College, Oxford University, where she read Modern Languages (German and French) and received her BA and MA degrees.
She received diplomas from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in voice, piano (Lloyd Hartley Memorial Prize), and violin, and studied voice with Marjorie Thomas of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
She appeared as a soloist in Oxford and London, toured in Europe with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner, and spent a year in Milan, Italy.
Now residing in the United States, Ms. Balestrieri appears regularly as a concert and recital soloist, and has sung under the baton of Christopher Hogwood, Leonard Slatkin, and Peter Phillips.
She has appeared in recital at the 92nd Street Y in New York and at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, performed at the Lincoln Center with the Four Nations Ensemble, and at Merkin and Florence Gould Halls in New York.
She has given critically-acclaimed performances in New York and Boston with the famed St. Thomas Choir and the New York Collegium, and in Washington DC with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Washington Bach Consort, and Opera Lafayette, among others.
Ms. Balestrieri has made several appearances with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in works by Mozart, Vaughan Williams, and Schubert.
Much in demand for her skills in baroque repertoire, Balestrieri performs regularly with the premier period instrument orchestras and ensembles across the country, taking major roles in several productions of baroque opera in New York, Boston, and Washington.
She also performs 20th century and contemporary works, including recent performances of French chamber works for voice and flute, and Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light with Anonymous Four.
She has recorded with the American Bach Soloists for the Koch label, and with Ensemble Five/One and the Folger Consort. In 1999, she was nominated for a "Wammie" (Washington Area Music Association award) in the Best Classical Vocalist category.
Recent performances include Messiah at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue and Washington National Cathedral; Haydn's Il mondo della luna
(Clarice) with Opera Lafayette; Bach arias with the Washington Bach Consort; Handel's drama Hercules (Iole); Handel's oratorio Alexander's Feast in its original version with the Bach Sinfonia (for whom she also gave the first Washington performance of the recently-discovered aria by Bach); and a recital of Handel cantatas for the American Handel Society conference in Santa Fe.
Additional performances include Mozart's Mass in C, Requiem and Solemn Vespers, and Bach's St. John Passion, Honegger's King David, and return engagements at the Saratoga Baroque Festival and the Staunton Music Festival at the Blackfriars Shakespeare Theatre.
In the spring of 2010, Ms. Balestrieri will appear in recital on the prestigious Phillips Collection series in Washington DC.
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