Maria Jette has appeared with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra: the Symphonies of Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Charlotte, Santa Rosa and Buffalo; Vocalessence (formerly The Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota), the Handel Choir of Baltimore, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, and Los Angeles Master Chorale; and with original instrument ensembles Angelica Cantanti, Portland Baroque Orchestra and The Lyra Baroque Orchestra. She has been a regular guest at the Oregon Bach, Victoria Bach and San Luis Obispo Mozart Festivals, the Oregon Festival of American Music, and on Public Radio International’s A Prairie Home Companion. With conductor Helmuth Rilling, she has sung Bach, Mozart and Monteverdi in Germany, Spain, Japan, and Canada, as well as in Minneapolis, New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. In a 20+ year association with conductor Philip Brunelle, she first appeared as the coloratura dog, Fido, in Britten’s Paul Bunyan; and has gone on to sing everything from fully-staged operas by Mozart opera and Virgil Thomson through oratorios by Handel, William Bolcom and Francis Grier, and most recently, Dominick Argento’s glorious Evensong (2009).
Her 45+ operatic roles range from Monteverdi’s Poppea and Handel’s Cleopatra through Mozart’s Pamina, Countess and Fiordiligi, many of them with the late, lamented Ex Machina Antique Music Theatre in the Twin Cities. With The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, she starred as the Mrs. in the May 2002 premiere of Garrison Keillor’s operatic excursion, Mr. and Mrs. Olson. She has performed her own production of Seuss/Kapilow’s Green Eggs & Ham for more than 50,000 kids, with symphonies and music festivals around the USA.
Her lengthy list of premieres includes song cycles by British composers Geoffrey Bush, John Gardner and Ian Kellam, and choral works with extended soprano solos by Judith Weir and John Gardner; and chamber works, songs and cycles by Dominick Argento, Randall Davidson, David Evan Thomas, Steve Heitzeg, David John Olsen, Russell Platt, Nancy Grundahl and Janika Vandervelde. For her service to new music in the Twin Cities, she was awarded a life membership with the American Composers Forum.
Ms. Jette’s discography includes two recordings on the Centaur label: a selection of Benjamin Britten’sFolksongs of the British Isles and Mélodies of Gabriel Fauré, both with harpist Judith Kogan; and two recordings of oratorios by the 19th C composer Simon Mayr, Il Passione and Atalia, performed and recorded (for Guild Records) with the Georgian Chamber Orchestra (Ingolstadt, Germany) under the direction of Franz Hauk. She has been featured on several CDs with Philip Brunelle and VocalEssence, including the world premiere recording (Virgin Classics) of Britten’s “American” opera, Paul Bunyan (Fido); Mozart’s Requiem (on Avie) with Andreas Delfs, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and St. Olaf Choir; and Messiah with Stephen Alltop and Chicago’s Apollo Chorus. (2/15/10)
Recent performances:
2007-8: Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne with the Acadiana Symphony in Lafayette, Louisiana; Mahler’sSymphony #4 with the Charlotte Symphony; Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (Miss Jessel) with Sacramento Opera; Grieg & Schubert with the Andover Chamber Series in Boston; Telemann’s rarely-performed cantata, Ino, with Jacques Ogg and the Lyra Baroque Orchestra in St. Paul; a Vaughan Williams mini-festival and music of Argento for the St. Paul Summer Song Festival; a new take on Bach with Garrison Keillor at the Oregon Bach Festival; Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate, Aaron Kernis’ Simple Songs, and Mahler’s Symphony #4 with Alexander Platt (in his chamber arrangement) for Woodstock’s Maverick Concerts in September.
2006-7: Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Cheyenne Symphony; Bach’s Easter Oratorio and Magnificat with the Grand Rapids Symphony; Green Eggs & Ham/Gertrude McFuzz with the Buffalo (NY) Philharmonic; several performances during Vocalessence’s celebration of composer William Bolcom, Illuminating Bolcom.Following the Grieg Mini-Fest which she devised (and performed) for the St. Paul Summer Song Festival, she sang more than 50 of Grieg’s songs on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion Cruise of the Norwegian fjords. In August, again at the Oregon Festival of American Music, she performed new arrangements of Richard Rodgers songs with jazz legends Dick Hyman and Ken Peplowski; and Twin Cities residents got their sixth dose of Sopranorama!, the indescribable annual event she performs with Molly Sue McDonald, Janis Hardy and Dan Chouinard.
2005-6: a recital of American folksong settings and folksong-inspired song for the The Shedd Institute (Eugene, OR); Sofiya Gubaidulina’s Hommage à T.S. Eliot on the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra chamber series; the world premiere of Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth with Vocalessence; and Mozart’s Le Nozze de Figaro (Susanna) with Opera Roanoke. Over the summer, she toured Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 in Australia with the San Luis Obispo Symphony; performed Bach solo cantatas, Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten (#202) and Jauchzet Gott (#51) at the Oregon Bach Festival and chamber music by Maria Newman for the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society; and sang lots of rarely-heard songs of Irving Berlin with the legendary Dick Hyman at the Oregon Festival of American Music.
