Janna Baty (January 1, 1968) is an American

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C ...

opera singer. She is best known for her singing in contemporary music and operas. Baty is also a professor at the Yale School of Music where she directs the student opera.

Biography

Baty is from Lexington, Massachusetts. She attended

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

and the Yale School of Music. At Yale, she studied with Doris Yarick Cross. After graduating, she moved to New York City and lives in

Highbridge, Bronx Highbridge is a residential neighborhood geographically located in the central-west section of the Bronx, New York City. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, Jerome Avenue to t ...

Career

Baty has performed with many major opera companies and orchestras, including the Boston Symphony,

Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at th ...

Hamburg State Opera The Hamburg State Opera (in German: Staatsoper Hamburg) is a German opera company based in Hamburg. Its theatre is near the square of Gänsemarkt. Since 2015, the current ''Intendant'' of the company is Georges Delnon, and the current ''General ...

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, that performs and produces primarily classic works. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable ...

, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Opera North, and Boston Lyric Opera. Among the numerous conductors with whom she has sung are James Levine,

Seiji Ozawa Seiji (written: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , or in hiragana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese ski jumper *, Japanese racing driver *, Japanese politician *, Japanese film directo ...

Michel Plasson Michel Plasson (born 2 October 1933, Paris, France) is a French conductor. Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. ...

, Carl Davis, Robert Spano, Steuart Bedford, Stephen Lord,

Gil Rose Gil Rose is the founder and conductor of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), founder and General-Artistic Director of Odyssey Opera, Artistic Director of Monadnock Music Festival, Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, and Execu ...

, and

Shinik Hahm Shinik Hahm (born 1958) is a Korean American conductor and a professor in the Practice of Conducting and Music Director of the Yale Philharmonia. Hahm has led North American, South American, European, and Far Eastern orchestras. Recent appeara ...

. She has made appearances around the world as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist, including at the Aldeburgh Festival in the U.K. and the Tanglewood Festival and

Norfolk Chamber Music Festival The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, hosted in Norfolk, Connecticut, is believed to be the oldest active summer music festival in North America. Set among the Litchfield Hills of the lower Berkshires, the Festival traces its roots to the Battell f ...

in the United States. Noted for her work in new music, Baty has collaborated with many contemporary composers, among them John Harbison, Bernard Rands,

Yehudi Wyner Yehudi Wyner (born June 1, 1929, in Calgary, Alberta) is an American composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. Life and career Wyner, who grew up in New York City, was raised in a musical family. His father, Lazar Weiner, was an eminent ...

Peter Child Peter Burlingham Child (born 6 May 1953) is an American composer, teacher, and musical analyst. He is Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was a composer in residence with the New England Philharmonic. Educat ...

Reza Vali Reza Vali (born 1952 in Ghazvin) is an Iranian musician and composer. Reza Vali was born in Iran and studied at the Tehran Conservatory. In 1972, he attended the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, where he studied composition. He ...

, and Paul Moravec. Baty has served as a professor of undergraduate and secondary voice at her alma mater, Yale School of Music, since 2008. She is a director of student opera there.

Work

Baty's voice has been described by '' The Washington Post'' as an "earth, dusky timbre." Baty's recordings include

's Folk Songs; Lukas Foss’s opera

Griffelkin ''Griffelkin'' is an opera by Lukas Foss with a libretto by Alastair Reid. The opera was first performed on November 6, 1955, in a nationwide telecast by the NBC Opera Theatre. Background Following the success of Gian Carlo Menotti's '' Amahl ...

; the world-premiere recording of

Eric Sawyer Eric W. Sawyer (born June 2, 1962 in Brookhaven, New York) is an American orchestral composer, pianist and professor of music at Amherst College. He has studied as an undergraduate at Harvard College, where he was selected as a Harvard Junior Fel ...

’s opera ''Our American Cousin''; and John Harbison's Mirabai Songs, all with Boston Modern Orchestra Project. '' American Record Guide'' wrote that Baty was "a vocally and interpretively commanding presence as the principal actress of the company" for ''Our American Cousin''. ''Guide to Records''' Payton MacDonald, wrote that "I was especially taken with Janna Baty's expressive and silvky voice on the Folk Songs" on the recording of Vali's flute concerto. In 2012, Baty performed in ''The Face'' by Donald Crockett, where '' The Boston Globe'' wrote that she "found a neat intersection of Broadway brass and the dark richness of opera's long list of mezzo-soprano antagonists" in her role as Infanta.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Baty, Janna Yale School of Music alumni Yale School of Music faculty Oberlin College alumni American operatic mezzo-sopranos Voice teachers Oberlin Conservatory of Music alumni 1968 births Living people People from Lexington, Massachusetts 21st-century American women