American soprano Lisa Delan has won acclaim as an interpreter of a vast range of repertoire and is recognized for her versatility and breadth of accomplishment in opera, song, and recording.
She has performed on some of the world’s leading concert stages including Lincoln Center, Davies Symphony Hall, Madrid's Auditorio Nacional, the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky Hall, and in a special appearance at Windsor Castle. Her festival appearances include the Bad Kissingen Festival in Germany, the Colmar Festival in France, the Rachmaninoff Festival in Novgorod, Russia, Festival del Sole in Napa Valley, the Tuscan Sun Festival, and the Domaine Forget Festival in Quebec.
Ms. Delan won recognition singing the title role in the world premiere of Gordon Getty’s Joan and the Bells in 1998, a role she has since reprised in France, Germany, the U.S., and Russia, and on the 2002 recording for PentaTone Classics. Critics praised her depiction of Joan of Arc as “beautifully sung” (International Record Review), “refreshingly unpretentious” (Gramophone), and “a role she has made her own, with the kind of pure tone one expects of a saint-to-be and the passion one expects from a 19-year-old girl going to her death. Miss Delan is exceptional” (Nevada Events). She reprised this role for the Russian National Orchestra’s Grand Festival in Moscow in 2012.
Ms. Delan is privileged to collaborate with composers whose musical lives are still works in progress, and has performed and recorded the music of William Bolcom, John Corigliano, David Garner, Gordon Getty, Jake Heggie, Mikhail Pletnev and Luna Pearl Woolf, among others. She was featured on three recordings released by PentaTone Classics in 2009: And If the Song Be Worth a Smile, her debut solo recording of songs by American composers (with pianist Kristin Pankonin); Getty’s song cycle The White Election (with pianist Fritz Steinegger); and as a guest artist on Phenomenon (works by composer David Garner). In reviewing all three recordings, Sequenza 21 concluded, “As a song interpreter she may well be unequaled.” The year 2013 saw the release of The Hours Begin to Sing and the new Getty opera Usher House, both on PentaTone Classics. An Audiophile Audition critic wrote of The Hours Begin to Sing, “I reviewed Lisa Delan’s first issue in this series in 2009… I said then ‘I am not sure I have heard a finer American song album since Songs of America made its debut [20] years ago.’ Well, guess what? I can say it again, with a lot of confidence.... Lisa Delan is still the master of this sort of recital.”
In 2013 Oxingale Records released Angel Heart, a music storybook, created by Ms. Delan and composer Luna Pearl Woolf, featuring the soprano together with Frederica von Stade, Zheng Cao, Sanford Sylvan and Dan Taylor with Matt Haimovitz and his all-cello ensemble Uccello. The recording also features Jeremy Irons narrating an original story by best-selling author Cornelia Funke. Angel Heart premiered in 2013 as a live multimedia performance presented by Cal Performances in Berkeley and Carnegie Hall in New York City and will be presented in 2015 by LA Opera and Festival del Sole. The family-oriented project has been lauded by The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and The New York Times.
2015 will welcome the release of PentaTone’s American holiday album, featuring Ms. Delan in works by Jake Heggie and David Garner with baritone Lester Lynch and members of the New Century Chamber Orchestra; she also returns to the studio in 2015 to record a new recital album. Ms. Delan is currently developing a genre-defying recording with Christopher O’Riley and Matt Haimovitz featuring art songs written for the soprano by Philip Glass, Gunther Schuller, John Corigliano, Mark Adamo, Aaron J. Kernis and Woolf.