Jury International Preliminary Rounds

Mezzo-soprano Marion van den Akker is a very versatile artist. She studied at the Amsterdam Conservatorium with Erna Spoorenberg, and continued her studies with Henk Smit, Aafje Heynis and Josephine Veasey. She has worked with conductors such as Gennadi Rozdestvensky, Hartmut Haenchen, Hans Vonk, Edo de Waart, Jean Fournet, Eri Klas, Marc Soustrot, Reinbert de Leeuw and Yakov Kreizberg. As a concert singer she performed Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Verdi’s Requiem, the Stabat Mater by Dvořák and by Rossini, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis and Ninth Symphony, and the passions of Johann Sebastian Bach. On the opera stage, she has interpreted the roles of Fyodor Boris Godunov, Orlovsky Die Fledermaus, Dido Dido and Aeneas and Carmen, Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro, Nefertite Akhnaton, La zia principessa Suor Angelica and the mezzo part in Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus. Marion van den Akker has appeared with De Nederlandse Opera, the Nationale Reisopera, Opera Festival Stia (Italy) and the Flemish Opera (Belgium). She has appeared with the Allegri String Quartet, the Ebony Band, and the Párkányi Quartet. She has also given solo recitals with pianists Rian de Waal, Martijn van den Hoek and Jeroen Sarphati. Dutch composers Willem Jeths, Robin de Raaff and Peter Jan Wagemans have composed music for her and she has also given masterclasses on the song cycles of Robert Schumann and lectures on the oeuvre of the composers Claude Vivier and Sofia Gubaidulina. Marion van den Akker is the programme organiser of the series ‘Royaal Vocaal’ in de Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague.

Arnold Alons studied linguistics, cultural history and archaeology in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Guatemala and Israel. He also followed courses in music drama at the Amsterdam Conservatory. He produced more than twenty operas in the Netherlands, some of which were performed in the Netherlands for the first time. His international career began in Vienna as an artist’s manager, where he aided many young singers on their way to an international career, singers Thomas Hampson, Anne Sofie von Otter and Alessandro Corbelli soon became much in demand. As artistic administrator and casting director in Geneva he also attracted the public’s attention to many new artists: Ben Heppner, Renée Fleming, Vesselina Kasarova and René Pape were scarcely known before they received their first Geneva contracts. He later became personal adviser to Hugues Gall at the Opéra national de Paris – La Bastille et Palais Garnier. Arnold Alons is currently casting director of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and of the Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile.

Photo: Marco Borggreve

Romanian-British soprano Nelly Miricioiu won especial fame thanks to her performances in the Saturday Matinee in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; from 1984 onwards she has sung the title roles of Tancredi, Armida, Semiramide, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia and Maria Stuarda. She has also performed these roles in Brussels, Vienna, Geneva and Washington as well as in the Salzburg Festival. Her repertoire also includes the title roles of Marie Victoire, Fedora, Adriana Lecouvreur in La Scala and Francesca da Rimini. Her further performances in the Saturday Matinee have included the roles of Iris in Mascagni’s eponymous opera, Imogene in Bellini’s Il pirata and Hélène in Jérusalem. Nelly Miricioiu has recorded Puccini’s Tosca, Rosamunde d’Inghilterra, Roberto Devereux and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana.

Martin Wright was chorus master of the San Diego Opera from 1984 to 1997, during which time he also fulfilled similar functions for the Los Angeles Opera, the Arizona Opera, the Music Academy of the West, the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts and the Rundfunkchor Berlin. He was chief conductor of the Groot Omroepkoor from 1993 to 2002 and regularly returns there as a guest conductor. He has also been musical director of the San Diego Master Chorale and principal guest conductor of the Lyric Opera San Diego. As a singer he has performed more than 30 operatic roles and has performed in concert with orchestras in the USA, Asia and Europe. Martin Wright was appointed artistic director of the Chorus of the Netherlands Opera at the start of the 2006-2007 season, preparing the chorus for such critically-acclaimed chorus-intensive productions as Tannhäuser, Doctor Atomic, Boris Godunov, Castor et Pollux and the prize-winning Saint François d’Assise.

Dutch mezzo-soprano Annett Andriesen (chairperson) made her debut with De Nederlandse Opera in 1977 in Harry Kupfer’s now legendary production of Elektra, having already been one of the prize winners of the International Vocal Competition in 1975. She has performed with De Nederlandse Opera, De Vlaamse Opera, Teatre Liceu, the San Francisco Opera and various opera companies in Germany. Her repertoire includes roles such as Fricka, Erda, Ulrica, Suzuki, Azucena, Klytämnestra and Kabanicha. She has performed in various world premieres of operas by Dutch composers, including Van Vlijmen & De Leeuw (Axel), Theo Loevendie (Naima), Konrad Boehmer (Dr. Faustus), Robin de Raaff (Raaff), and Henk Alkema (Rixt). She recently appeared in Janácek’s Makropoulos Case with De Nederlandse Opera, where she will return soon for the world première of Alexander Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart as part of the 2010 Holland Festival and the revival of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Next year she will also appear in Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, as Mother in Berg’s Lulu. She currently teaches voice at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In addition to performing both classical and 20th century repertoire, she has her own studio for vocal training for jazz and pop singers. She has produced two operas. Annett Andriesen is general manager of the Dutch International Vocal Competition and continues to be active in the field of opera and music theatre.