With polished, elegant vocalism and committed dramatic portrayals on-stage, American mezzo-soprano Jamie Van Eyck appeals to audiences and critics alike as a compelling young artist in opera and concert.  This season she debuts with Arizona Opera as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and returns to the Bar Harbor Music Festival in the same role.  In concert, she sings Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the American Symphony Orchestra, Messiah with the Lexington Philharmonic, and Mozart’s Litaniae Lauretanae and Coronation Mass with the Saint Charles Singers of Chicago.  Jamie debuts at the Ojai Festival and Ojai North in contemporary works by Cowell, Harrison, and Seeger, and she performs George Crumb’s American Songbook VI with Clocks-in-Motion Percussion Ensemble.  She is featured in recital with the Dallas Museum of Art Concert Series, and makes her New York City solo recital debut with pianist Jocelyn Dueck in a performance sponsored by The Casement Fund.  Jamie’s 2012 calendar included debuts with the Princeton Festival (Gianni Schicchi) and Bar Harbor Music Festival (Roméo et Juliette), as well as performances of Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis for the Bard SummerScape Festival.  She recently returned to Madison Opera for her role debut as Olga in Eugene Onegin.  She sang recitals in repeat engagements for the Dallas Museum of Art and the Wolf Trap Foundation Discovery Series, and gave the Manhattan premiere of the Five Borough Songbook with the Five Boroughs Music Festival.  Ms. Van Eyck also sang Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and Handel’s Messiah with the Phoenix Symphony.  She made her Boston Lyric Opera debut as The Drummer in The Emperor of Atlantis and as Daughter in the premiere performances of After-Image.  The Boston Herald praised her performance as, “beautifully acted and sung.”  She returned to Utah Opera as Meg in Little Women, giving a performance that Opera News called, “luminescent.”  In concert, Jamie sang Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the American Symphony Orchestra, Messiah with The Colorado Symphony, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with The Madison Symphony Orchestra.  Bridge Records recently released Jamie’s second recording for the label titled, Complete Crumb Edition, Volume 15.  The disc has been praised as “consistently wonderful” and “not to be missed” by Classics Today, as well as The Classical Review who deems the performance rich with “immense technical skill and musical panache.”

Ms. Van Eyck recently made her role and company debut as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro for Opera Theater of St. Louis and appeared at the Bard SummerScape Festival in the role of Alkmene in Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae.  She sang Mercédès in Carmen and Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw for Madison Opera, and reprised the roles of Dido and The Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas with The Mark Morris Dance Group on tour throughout the United States and at Moscow’s acclaimed Golden Mask Festival.  She has performed and premiered works by James Primosch and George Crumb with Orchestra 2001 of Philadelphia. 

During her consecutive residencies at Wolf Trap Opera, Ms. Van Eyck sang Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos, and Melanto in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, for which the Washington Post called her “a standout!”  She has been featured in Bernstein’s Mass and Handel’s Messiah with the Utah Symphony, and in the role of The Old Lady in Candide with The National Symphony Orchestra.  Jamie made her Broadway debut in Jerome Kern’s Music in the Air with the Encores! series at New York City Center.  With Santa Fe Opera, she covered the role of Junon in Plateé and performed scenes as Sister Helen in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

Among Jamie’s concert performances are Schönberg’s Peirrot Lunaire with the New England Contemporary Ensemble, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Été with City Music-Cleveland, and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Boston’s Harvard-Radcliffe Symphony.  At Wolf Trap, Ms. Van Eyck has twice performed in recital with acclaimed pianist, Steven Blier.  She was a soloist in This Way to Broadway with Marvin Hamlisch and The National Symphony Orchestra, and she has been featured in multiple Pops concerts with conductor Keith Lockhart.

An avid proponent of new music, Ms. Van Eyck sang two world premiere performances at Carnegie Hall during the spring of 2009, including the premiere of Ned Rorem’s Three Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.  At the Tanglewood Music Center’s Festival of Contemporary Music, she performed the role of Mama in the North American staged premiere of Elliott Carter’s What Next? under the baton of James Levine.  For her leading role, the Hartford Courant proclaimed that she “performed beautifully with exacting musical precision and strong charisma.”  Her performance can be seen on the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s DVD release of the opera.  More information is available on Ms. Van Eyck’s website.

Dr. Van Eyck has taught voice for over a decade.   Currently a member of the voice faculty at Beloit College, she has also taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  She has been a panelist for Opera America’s Career Development Workshops, helping to prepare young singers for careers in opera and concert.