Elise Caluwaerts

Soprano Elise Caluwaerts is a versatile performer who moves easily among traditional operatic repertory, song recitals, early music, and contemporary multi-disciplinary collaborations. In 2023, she released an album featuring the complete songs of Alma Mahler. Caluwaerts was born in Belgium and grew up with four siblings in a family where music-making was encouraged; all the children played at least one instrument. As a teen, she was the subject of interest from fashion publications, to which she attributes her later interest in multimedia musical presentations. She also studied dance. She attended the Royal Antwerp Conservatory, studying traditional classical singing with Lucienne van Dyck, and the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels, studying Baroque opera there. Caluwaerts went on to the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, studying with Diane Forlano and graduating with honors. She also attended master classes with Peter Kooij, Elly Ameling, and David Wilson Johnson, among others. She has also worked with vocal coaches Neil Schicoff and Craig Rutenberg. In 2016, Caluwaerts was featured on an album of coloratura repertory with the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra. By then, Caluwaerts had already sung the role of Jenny in Kurt Weill's Der Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny with the Volkstheater Rostock in 2015. Caluwaerts has various traditional operatic roles in her repertory, including Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni, which she performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in 2017, and Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. She has also tended to favor challenging repertory, including new works -- she sang the role of Lei in Pascal Dusapin's chamber opera Passion at the Sydney Festival in 2016 and created the lead female role of Chuan Yun in Enjott Schneider's opera Marco Polo at the Guangzhou Opera in China during the 2017-2018 season. She has performed in multi-disciplinary productions, including "Avondrood," based on Richard Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder, in a collaboration with author Lize Spit, and she curated an event at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco that combined music, art, fashion, and virtual reality technology. Caluwaerts has also been in demand as a concert singer, performing under such leading historically oriented conductors as Emmanuelle Haim, Philippe Herreweghe, and Jordi Savall, and she performs art song with pianist Kim Van den Brempt. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she released lullabies weekly with pianist Elenora Pertz. In 2023, Caluwaerts released the album Alma -- Meine Seele: Complete Songs of Alma Mahler with pianist Marianna Shirinyan on the Fuga Libera label.
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