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The Spanish mezzo-soprano, Laia Cortés-Calafell, sang from her youngest age in several choirs; It would lead her to study music theory, harmony, piano and singing. In 1996 she obtained the elementary degree of music from the Barcelona Conservatory and in December 2003 she was an unconditional place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she began her graduate studies in singing with Laura Sarti. In July 2008, she completed her final year of vocal studies, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with Annette Thompson. During the year 2008-2009, thanks to the support of the foundation "fundación Caja Madrid", she studied an opera master-course at the Opéra Studio in Flanders, Belgium. She also attended master-classes with prestigious singers and pianists such as Nancy Argenta, Rylan Davies, Ma. Dolors Aldea, Richard Jackson, Mark Padmore, Ann Murray, Mirella Freni, Graham Johnson and Pietro Rizzo.
In September 2009 Laia Cortés-Calafell made her debut as a soloist with the Orchestre des Champs Élysées, under the direction of the conductor Philippe Herreweghe in prestigious festivals such as the Lucerne Festival and the Leipzig Festival. Since then she could have been heard, among others, singing the solo alto part in W.A. Mozart's Vesperae solennes de confessore under the direction of Maestro Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the role of Modestina in G. Rossini's opera Il Viaggio a Reims in the musical season of the prestigious Teatro Real de Madrid, her participation in the Young Artist program of the prestigious Britten-Pears Foundation in the UK, the role of Trojan in W.A. Mozart's Idomeneo at the opera of Caen and Luxembourg with the orchestra and chorus of Les Siècles under the direction of François-Xavier Roth, the solo alto in the George Frideric Handel's Messiah with the prestigious ensemble La Capilla Real de Madrid under the direction of Óscar Gershensohn and her participation in the meeting of the lyrical young singers in Modena (Italy) with the master-classes with the superb soprano Mirella Freni.
Laia Cortés-Calafell's oratorio repertoire includes works such as Antonio Vivaldi's Magnificat and Gloria, the Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Camille Saint-Saëns' Oratorio de Noël and J.S. Bach's Weihnachts-Oratorium (BWV 248), W.A. Mozart's Misa Spatzenmesse, Vesperae solennes de confessore and Requiem, Felix Mendelssohn's Die Erste Walpurgisnacht and also G.F. Handel's The Messiah. In the opera repertoire she sings Fidalma in D. Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, Sesto in W.A. Mozart's La clemenza di tito, Dorabella in W.A. Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Cherubino in W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Sesto in G.F. Handel's Giulio Cesare; Isabella in G. Rossini's L'Italiana in Alger, Rosina in G. Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Angelina in G. Rossini's Cenerentola and Modestina in G. Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reims and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther.
Laia Cortés-Calafell works regularly with Ensemble Pygmalion (Director: Raphaël Pichon), Vocal Ensemble Aedes, Choir Les Siècles (Director: François-Xavier Roth) in France, Collegium Vocale Gent (Director: Philippe Herreweghe) in Belgium, and Ensemble Barcelona Ars Nova, as well as a soloist. |
