Biography
Jane Irwin studied music at Lancaster University and singing at the Royal Northern College of Music as a mezzo.
As a concert and recital singer she has appeared regularly in Britain, Europe and America. In 2002 she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Mariss Jansons. She has sung for the BBC Proms, at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Berlin Festival, the Concertgebouw and the Musikverein.
She has worked with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre de Paris, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, Philharmonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra and with conductors Myung Whun Chung, Günther Herbig, Semyon Bychkov, Ivor Bolton, Andrew Davis, Libor Pesek, Donald Runnicles, Antonio Pappano, Sakari Oramo, Mark Elder, Matthias Bamert, Trevor Pinnock, Petr Altrichter, Paul Daniel, Joseph Swensen, Sir Richard Armstrong and Jakov Kreizberg. She has given recitals at the Châtelet, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Geneva, Aix-en-Provence and Japan.
In 2009 Jane Irwin moved into the soprano repertoire. She sang her first Britten War Requiem in January 2010 for the Cambridge University Music Society under David Hill.
As a mezzo, concert repertoire included Verdi Requiem, Wagner Wesendonck Lieder, Mahler Symphonies No 3 and 8, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert-Lieder, Das Lied von der Erde and Kindertotenlieder, Elgar Dream of Gerontius, The Music Makers, The Apostles and The Kingdom, Britten Phaedra, Chausson Poème de L’amour et de la mer, Berlioz La mort de Cléopâtre, Tippett A Child of our Time and Brahms Alto Rhapsody. She made her debut at the ROH in a new production of Götterdämmerung/Second Norn under Bernard Haitink returning in 2003 to sing Suzuki/Madam Butterfly. She has sung in Die Walküre at Bayreuth, and Brangäne/Tristan und Isolde for San Francisco Opera and English National Opera, Mère Marie/Dialogues des Carmélites for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and appears regularly with Scottish Opera highlights including Waltraute/Götterdämmerung and Anezka in The Two Widows by Smetana at the Edinburgh Festival.
Recent and future engagements include concerts with Manchester Camerata, San Diego Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, as well as Bartok Duke Bluebeard’s Castle in Valencia and Madrid. She will sing her first Marie in Fragments from Wozzeck with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland under Diego Masson in August 2010. In 2011 she will sing Brangäne in a new production of Tristan und Isolde for the Deutsche Opera Berlin conducted by Donald Runnicles and directed by Graham Vick.
Last update
May 2010