Soprano Janeanne Houston is a versatile performer, and one of the Northwest region’s busiest artists. Her extensive repertoire spans the Baroque era to the present, and she has been privileged to champion the work of living composers. She has worked under the batons of many fine conductors including Gerard Schwarz, James DePreist, Sidney Harth, Dean Williamson, Richard Sparks, Yakov Bergman, Christophe Chagnard, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. An active recitalist, she is often the featured guest artist in concert series programs and music festivals across the nation. Concert works that she has performed many times include Carmina Burana, Messiah, Requiems of Brahms, Verdi, and Mozart, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. Also at home on the opera stage, she has sung the roles of Elizabetta in Don Carlo, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Violetta in La Traviata, Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites and Micaela in Carmen. Ms. Houston has recorded many of North Carolina composer Dan Locklair’s songs and vocal works, and she recorded a work titled Lairs of Soundings for string orchestra and soprano with the Slovak Radio Orchestra under Kirk Trevor for the Naxos label. A recording of world premieres by living composers titled The Shining Place was also released in 2006, and preparations for a future recording release for Zimbel Records titled Songs of the Cotton Grass. This disk features music of Welsh composer Hilary Tann. Ms. Houston gave the East Coast premiere of that cycle on a New York State recital tour with oboist, Shannon Spicciati. Other recordings include So Great a Joy, Living Mysteries, The Chamber Music of Dan Locklair, (Albany Records), and So Much Beauty. The Seattle Times has called her singing "radiant-voiced" and Gramophone, "unfailingly responsive and dedicated.” The Journal of Singing raves “a flawless sense of style.” Recent concert performances have included, Poulenc’s Gloria under the baton of Rodney Eichenberger at Benaroya Hall, the role of the Contessa Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro with Helena Symphony, Elizabetta in Don Carlo for Bellevue Opera, Brahms’ A German Requiem with Bremerton Symphony conducted by Hilary Davon Wetton, and this year with Rainier Symphony. She sang a return engagement for the Messiah Festival of Music and Art in Kansas, and has recently sung performances of Verdi’s Requiem in Benaroya Hall with Mark Adrian conducting, and this past spring with Walla Walla Symphony under Yakov Bergman. The managing and founding member of Northwest Artists and the recording label Elmgrove Productions; she has been a member of the voice faculty at Pacific Lutheran University since 1989.

Photo: Susan Rothschild