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The English soprano, Sophie Daneman, studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where her teacher was Johanna Peters, and received an award from the Countess of Munster Trust.
Sophie Daneman developed a leading career in that field of period performances in the 1990’s, becoming particularly well known for her work with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants in France . She has appeared as a soloist in recitals and oratorios throughout Britain and Europe in works ranging from Monteverdi, J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel and W.A. Mozart to Benjamin Britten, Arnold Schoenberg and Luciano Berio.
In the field of period performance, Sophie Daneman has performed with conductors Christopher Hogwood, Robert King, Gérard Lesne, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Sir Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, Harry Christophers, and Paul Daniel. A few of the many works she sings in this historically informed style are G.F. Handel's L'Allegro, W.A. Mozart's concert arias, L.v. Beethoven's Egmont music, Rameau's Castor et Pollex and Les Fêtes d'Hebe, G.F. Handel's Acis and Galatea, Rodelinda, and Messiah; Mondonville's Jephte, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Antonio Vivaldi's Ottone in Villa (to mention those she has recorded). Other works in her repertory are J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) and St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), G.F. Handel's Ezio, Saul, Agrippina, and Arianne; Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria and L'Incoronazione di Poppea; and W.A. Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, and Requiem.
However, Sophie Daneman is far from being limited to the field of early music. She debuted with the Opéra-Comique in Paris in the title female role of Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande, conducted by Georges Prêtre. She has also sung in Edward Elgar's The Kingdom at Wells Cathedral, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music at the Barbican Centre in London, B. Britten's Spring Symphony with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano, Gustav Mahler's Second and Eighth Symphonies, and Sir Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time.
Sophie Daneman has an active career as a recitalist, which includes both period performances of early music and music from the standard performance style repertoire. She has sung in recitals at the Villa Medici in Rome, at Wigmore Hall with Julius Drake and Eugene Asti, at the Greenwich Festival in a specially devised programme of Frédéric Chopin's songs with accompanist Leslie Howard and readings by Leslie Caron, at the Saintes Festival with Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake, at the Purcell Room with Roger Vignoles, and recently at the Cheltenham, Belfast and Saintes Festivals with Julius Drake, with the Guarneri Trio Prague, Eugene Asti and Graham Johnson at Wigmore Hall, with Roger Vignoles in the 'Landscape into Song' series at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and with Eugene Asti for BBC Radio 3.
Sophie Daneman has recorded for the Erato, Harmonia Mundi, EMI, and Virgin labels and appeared in radio and television broadcasts for Irish Radio and Television, the BBC, and RIAS Berlin. |
