Soprano
"Jessie Downs is an emerging operatic soprano with a passion for bel canto and verismo repertoire."
Jessie Downs (b. 1991) is an emerging operatic soprano with a passion for bel canto and verismo repertoire. In December of 2020, she was awarded Third Place in her age category in The North International Music Competition for her recording of "Regnava nel silenzio" from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. Jessie’s recent professional vocal engagements include making her Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist in the 2018 Night of Inspiration, performing as the soprano soloist in J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and presenting scenes from Madama Butterfly (as Cio-Cio-san) and La Traviata (as Violetta) with both Nickel City Opera and the Buffalo Master Chorale. In June of 2021, she premiered the role of the impish child spirit Sashatya in her new opera The Second Sight, a project that will serve as her doctoral dissertation in Music Composition at the University at Buffalo. Jessie also provides weekly musical offerings in her roles as Soprano Soloist and Associate Music Director (under Maestro Daniel Bassin) for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, one of the city's most esteemed musical institutions.
Prepared roles vary from Bellini’s Giulietta of I Capuleti e I Montecchi to the title role of his masterwork Norma, lyric roles like Mozart’s Susanna and Bizet's Micaëla, to the fiery coloratura of Donizetti’s Lucia and the dramatic thrust of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Jessie began studying classical voice at the age of 14, and has studied with master pedagogue Franco Bertacci since 2010, after studying with his student, soprano Nadine Robinson. She now runs her own vocal studio through which she is passing on her technical knowledge to a new generation of performers.
Jessie is also the founder and director of the contemporary vocal ensemble the Sotto Voce Vocal Collective, who were awarded a New Music USA Project Grant in 2018 for their “Living Voices” program. As a contemporary vocalist, she has premiered roles in several new operas and performed chamber music with luminaries of the field, such as Exaudi’s Juliet Fraser at Royaumont Abbey in France, and ekmeles’s Jeffrey Gavett at the Longy School of Music in Boston. Jessie holds a Bachelors of Music from Oberlin Conservatory (2013) and and recently received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Composition "with distinction" from the University at Buffalo (NY).
Prepared roles vary from Bellini’s Giulietta of I Capuleti e I Montecchi to the title role of his masterwork Norma, lyric roles like Mozart’s Susanna and Bizet's Micaëla, to the fiery coloratura of Donizetti’s Lucia and the dramatic thrust of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Jessie began studying classical voice at the age of 14, and has studied with master pedagogue Franco Bertacci since 2010, after studying with his student, soprano Nadine Robinson. She now runs her own vocal studio through which she is passing on her technical knowledge to a new generation of performers.
Jessie is also the founder and director of the contemporary vocal ensemble the Sotto Voce Vocal Collective, who were awarded a New Music USA Project Grant in 2018 for their “Living Voices” program. As a contemporary vocalist, she has premiered roles in several new operas and performed chamber music with luminaries of the field, such as Exaudi’s Juliet Fraser at Royaumont Abbey in France, and ekmeles’s Jeffrey Gavett at the Longy School of Music in Boston. Jessie holds a Bachelors of Music from Oberlin Conservatory (2013) and and recently received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Composition "with distinction" from the University at Buffalo (NY).
"As a contemporary vocalist, she has premiered roles in several new operas and performed chamber music with luminaries of the field..."
Performance Samples
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