guest performer — mezzo soprano
Jane Sheldon
Boston-based Australian soprano Jane Sheldon has been singing professionally since the age of 15, specialising in contemporary chamber music and the historically informed performance of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Jane made her professional debut in 1998 with a recording and performance of George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children with Halcyon and the Sydney Alpha Ensemble. Since then, Jane has gone on to work with some of the finest ensembles and musicians in Australia and beyond, and has sung under the direction of Charles Dutoit, Reinbert de Leeuw, Antony Walker, Ola Rudner, and Paul Dyer, amongst others.
In Australia, Jane has been a guest artist with many acclaimed ensembles, including Pinchgut Opera, The Song Company, Synergy Percussion, and the Sydney Symphony, and she is a regular guest artist with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australia's premier period instrument ensemble. Jane also works in the UK, and performed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2008 UK premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Wild Swans.
A track from her 2004 ABC recording of the work, made with Ola Rudner and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, reached no.1 on the UK iTunes classical music charts in 2007. Jane’s first solo album, Song of the Angel, was released by ABC Classics in 2002 and she has continued to work for the label as a solo artist, appearing on Swooning, Allegri Miserere, Prayer for Peace, and The Classic 100.
She is also a guest artist on Teddy Tahu Rhodes’ award-winning album The Voice. In 2009 she recorded a new solo disc for ABC Classics of recent Australian compositions for soprano and chamber ensemble. Jane has worked on a number of scores for theatre, film and television, including Christopher Gordon’s Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack for telemovie On the Beach, and the recent releases Like Minds and December BoysA recording of Allegri’s Miserere Jane made with Cantillation was featured in Bangarra Dance Theatre’s acclaimed 2004 production, Clan. Her recording of Kats-Chernin's Eliza Aria was featured in John Galliano's Spring 2009 ready-to-wear show.
In 2009 Jane commissioned The Origin Cycle with philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith, in which 8 composers set text from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
Last year Jane gave performances of the work in the US, Canada and Australia, with Firebird Ensemble and Ensemble Offspring. The project was funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, Harvard University, the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts, Sydney's New Music Network, and was supported by the Australian Museum. A piece from the cycle is up for selection at the International Music Council’s International Rostrum of Composers competition, to be judged this June.
Upcoming engagements include Vivaldi’s Serenata a Tre with Pinchgut Opera; the world premiere of Rosalind Page’s new arrangment of the Sonetos del Amor Oscuro, with pianist Zubin Kanga; a program of Baroque duets with Salut! Baroque and fellow soprano Anna Fraser; and atmospheres, a concert of electro-acoustic compositions with Halcyon.
Concerts with Chronology Arts