Biography
Armenian-American Soprano Ani Maldjian has been described as a "remarkable soprano", with a voice that is "richly mature and full of lyric nuance", and her singing "elegant, commanding, brilliant, fresh and strong…definitely a name to watch as she rises through the ranks of young sopranos."
This 2009-2010 season, Maldjian made her debut with West Bay Opera as Musetta in La Boheme and with Townsend Opera as Valencienne in The Merry Widow. She returned to Opera Santa Barbara as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, and to Long Beach Opera for a fourth season, as Madame Mao in Nixon in China. This Spring, she will be covering Young Amelia and the Flier in Hagen's world premiere of Amelia at Seattle Opera and will also be performing The Diary of Anne Frank with Long Beach Opera. In the summer, she returns to Idaho for a concert with Sun Valley Opera. Future engagements include a return to Seattle Opera, and her debut with Opera in the Heights.
Maldjian’s 2008-2009 season began with her debut at Festival Opera of Walnut Creek as Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, followed by her debut at Atlanta Opera, as Clorinda in La Cenerentola, opposite Jennifer Larmore. In January, she sang a third season with Long Beach Opera as the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen, which received tremendous reviews, and this March, she made her debut at Opera Santa Barbara as Valencienne in The Merry Widow. Highlights of the future seasons include her return to Seattle Opera in 2011.
Maldjian has performed over 25 major operatic roles including Clorinda, Nannetta, Lauretta, Serpina, Cleopatra, Adele, Despina and her Armenian title roles as Zvart, Armine and Zemire, premiered in Los Angeles. With a great passion and enthusiasm for 20th and 21st century music, she has also performed the title roles in The Diary of Anne Frank and The Cunning Little Vixen with Long Beach Opera, Fire/Princess/Nightingale in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges with Seattle Opera’s YAP, Princess (#1) in Susa’s Transformations with the Merola Program, among others. She also created the role of Jane in the world premiere of Wet by Anne LeBaron at the Walt Disney Center in Los Angeles, with critical acclaim.
Her concert credits include Hatzis’ Light from the Cross with the Camerata Orchestra in Athens, Greece, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Sacramento Choral Society and numerous recitals and aria concerts throughout California and Hawaii, with companies such as the Hoku Concert Series, Southcoast Symphony Orchestra, Opera Associates of Los Angeles, Opera Reading Club of Hollywood, Long Beach Festival, Armenian American Medical Society, Mozart Live on the Radio, Palm Springs Opera Guild, and Merola Opera.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts and a Master of Music degree from The California State University of Northridge. She received additional opera training at Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program (06-08), San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program (06/07), Music Academy of the West (04/05), Aspen Music Festival (03), and OperaWorks (02). She was the First Place Winner of the Western Region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2005.
She has worked with conductors such as Brian Garman, Gary Thor Wedow, Stephen Lord, Martin Katz, Gregory Vajda, Dean Williamson, Andreas Mitisek, Richard Buckley, Randall Behr, David Aks, Sara Jobin, Vatsche Barsoumian and Michael Morgan; directors such as Stephen Wadsworth, Peter Kazaras, David Gately, Jose Maria Condemi, Chas Rader-Shieber, Ed Berkeley, Joe Goode, and John Duykers; coaches such as Philip Kelsey, Marilyn Horne, Warren Jones, John Churchwell, Armen Guzelimian, Ann Baltz, Mark Morash, Maro Donabedian, Jay Rozendaal, and David McDade. Teachers include Sheri Greenawald, Deanna Murray, Cyndia Sieden and Jane Eaglen.
