Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson

Soprano

Assistant Professor of Voice

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Mailing Address: 301 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0301

Soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson has enjoyed a busy and varied singing career since moving to Europe in 1995 as recipient of a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship. She has performed more than 50 roles in opera, operetta and musical theater in addition to much of the standard oratorio literature. In particular she has sung the heavier coloratura soprano roles such as Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Violetta in La Traviata and the title roles in Alban Berg’s Lulu and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. She has also been highly praised for her portrayals of such diverse roles as Gilda in Rigoletto and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Ms. Bird-Arvidsson was the leading lyric-coloratura soprano first at the theater in Coburg and then in Bremen, Germany. Additionally, she has performed at the opera houses in Lübeck, Regensburg, Detmold, Würzburg, Bonn, and at the National Theater in Mannheim. In 2007 she debuted in Austria at the Vienna Volksoper singing Euridice in the highly successful season-opening production of Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers. She has been repeatedly praised by the press and the public, not only for her expressive singing but also for her dramatic ability and charismatic stage presence. She was twice the recipient of the audience favorite award at the Landestheater Coburg. As an active recitalist and concert singer Ms. Bird-Arvidsson has appeared in Coburg and Bremen as well as Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Luxembourg and at Carnegie Hall in a Veteran’s Day Program with the US Army Band. She has won first place in the Sylvia Geszty Coloratura Competition in Luxembourg, the Robert Stolz Operetta Competition and the Competition of the Elise Meyer Foundation in Hamburg, Germany. She has worked with notable conductors, stage directors and coaches such as Martin Katz, Antoine Palloc, J.J. Penna, Gustav Meier, Dejan Miladinovic, Lawrence Renes, Alessandro Amoretti, Helmut Baumann, Barrie Kosky, Phillip Himmelmann, Florian Ludwig, Stefan Klingele and Hiroshi Kodama.

During the 2008-2009 season Ms. Bird-Arvidsson returned to Vienna as Euridice and to Coburg for a Puccini Gala and as soloist in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. She travelled to Brussels to perform together with members of the renowned Ictus Ensemble in honor of the 200th anniversary of Ricordi Publishing. She was the soprano soloist in Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time in Bremen. In late spring she appears for the first time at the theaters in Chemnitz, Germany as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust and in Hagen, Germany as Gilda in Rigoletto followed by her role debut as Nedda in I Pagliacci.

Ms. Bird-Arvidsson studied at Southern Methodist University where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Languages. She received her Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan. After moving to Europe she became a student of renowned soprano Judith Beckmann at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg as she began her European career. Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson is very pleased and excited to be joining the voice faculty of the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder beginning in August 2009.

Undergraduate Voice Audition Requirements (PDF)
Graduate Voice Audition Requirements (PDF)