Adanya Dunn ← THE MATRIX of FABULOUS DISCOVERIES

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Worldlines to Adanya Dunn:

HUMAN SOCIETY is a small world network. Between Adanya Dunn and you there are 6 or fewer degrees of separation.

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Who I Am & Where I Live

Name: Adanya Dunn
City: Toronto
Country: Canada

My Life & Work

Bio: Canadian-Bulgarian soprano Adanya Dunn, critically acclaimed for her performance as Musetta in Against the Grain Theatre’s English “transladaptation” of Puccini’s La bohème, was noted by Definitely The Opera as the “revelation of the evening”, while Opera Going Toronto marked her as a “sultry soprano red hot and alluring.” For the 2016/2017, Adanya joined the Rebanks Family Fellowship & International Performance Residency Program at Glenn Gould School where she studied with Monica Whicher.

In June and July 2017, Adanya appeared as the title role in CHARLOTTE: A Tri-Coloured Play with Music, a new genre-bending chamber musical based on the life and artwork of the German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943). The show premiered as part of Toronto’s Luminato Festival and again in Taipei, Taiwan at the World Stage Design Scenofest, where Adanya made her Asian debut.

An exciting collaboration between Against the Grain Theatre and the Toronto International Film Festival led to her performing with pianist Topher Mokrzewski in excerpts of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire as part the pre-concert to the first ever Toronto retrospective of one of the most important and influential filmmaking teams in cinema history, “Not Reconciled: The Films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet” (Moses und Aron), of which their performance was a noted as “a qualified success” (Barcza Blog).

An alumna of the University of Toronto (UofT), Adanya studied with Professor Lorna MacDonald for both her Master of Music in Opera Performance and Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance degrees. Within her studies, she had the opportunity to work with artists such as Sandra Horst, Nathalie Paulin, Russell Braun, Michael Albano, and Che Anne Loewen. While at the Opera School, she sang roles such as Mlle Silberklang (Der Schauspieldirekor), The Governess (The Turn of the Screw), and Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring), and premiered three different contemporary operas by composition students.

In May 2016, Adanya graduated from Bard College Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, led by Artistic Directors Dawn Upshaw and Kayo Iwama, and studying with Patricia Misslin and Edith Bers. Through Bard, she performed at the Morgan Library in NYC, the Longy School of Music in Boston, the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Sosnoff Theater in the Hudson Valley, and a debut with the Albany Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Allen Miller singing First Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Adanya sang the soprano solo in Handel’s Messiah under the baton of Leon Botstein with The Orchestra Now; performed in an operatic double bill as Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and the New York State Premiere of Oliver Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! in the soprano lead, Rhoda.

In January 2015, Adanya made her Carnegie Hall debut as part of Marilyn Horne’s The Song Continues, where she “took the stage with a wonderful relaxed stage presence and delighted the audience with her engaging personality” (Vocedimeche). Adanya was a Voice Fellow for two years at the Music Academy of the West (MAW) helmed by iconic mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne. At MAW she Adanya performed the role of Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola directed by David Paul and conducted by Jayce Ogren. There, she also performed in opera scenes directed by Bruce Donnell: Frantik (The Cunning Little Vixen) and Valencienne (Die lustige Witwe). The previous year, she covered the role of Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen and performed in opera scene excerpts directed by Gregory Fortner, as Marzelline (Fidelio by Beethoven) and Elvira (L’italiana in Algeri) conducted by John Fisher and Warren Jones, respectively. Adanya also premiered the chamber song cycle we do it to one another by cellist-composer Joshua Roman, and had the opportunity to work with Marilyn Horne, Fred Carama, Martin Katz, John Churchwell, Anthony Dean Griffey, Nino Sanikidze, and Denise Massé.

Adanya has won an Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (Buffalo-Toronto District) and was a finalist at the Eckhardt Gramatté Competition in May 2017. Adanya won a Top Graduate Award from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and is a two-time long-term grant recipient for Professional Musicians from the Canada Council for the Arts.

With support of the Canadian Aldeburgh Foundation, she attended the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, Aldeburgh Music Festival in June 2012, studying with soprano Dawn Upshaw and pianist Kayo Iwama in England. Past development programs include Highlands Opera Studio, Banff Centre’s Opera in the 21st Century Program, Opera NUOVA, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Tapestry Opera 101, Vancouver International Song Institute, Orford Arts Centre and Academy, and Opera Atelier Professional Training Program. Adanya has had the pleasure of coaching with Richard Margison, Renate Rohlfing, Lucy Shelton, John Fisher, Marilyn Horne, Cameron Stowe, Warren Jones, and Philip Morehead.

The fall was full of ground-breaking music by Canadian composers. With the Highlands Opera Studio, Adanya performed in the semi-staged workshop performance of Mishaabooz’s Realm, an important new work combining opera and First Nations singers and instrumentalists, by Cree composer Andrew Balfour. With Soundstreams, Adanya was the soprano soloist in the 70-minute theatrical realization of the music by Quebecois composer Claude Vivier (1948-1983) including Musik für das Ende (The Music of the End) and Do you Believe in the Immortality of the Soul? at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto. These were the world premiere of the first staged production of these pieces comprised of 10 intercultural singers bringing together diverse styles and heritages in a ritual journey through life, through death, and beyond.

Adanya’s passion for innovative and genre-bending projects led her to pursue roles in both the contemporary and traditional classical spheres. She is a resident performer with the interdisciplinary arts collective FAWN Chamber Creative collaborating with composers, artists, writers, and performers, in creating and producing new works. Adanya is the Co-Artistic Director of and core performer with The Happenstancers, a chamber music concert series she developed with her colleagues Brad Cherwin (clarinet) and Nahre Sol (piano). Featuring guest artists, visual media, and creative programming, the series is currently in its second season.

Upcoming projects the world premiere of Synesthesia IV – Pandora, a triple bill of Opera-Ballets by three different Canadian composers that emerged through a collective creation method and improvisation with FAWN; a workshop with Soundstreams; a residency with ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) at the Banff Centre this summer; and some funky psychedelic-electro-improv-opera-esque creations in Europe and beyond.