Karina Gauvin
Karina Gauvin is a Canadian soprano who rapidly developed an important concert and recital career in North America and Europe during the second half of the 1990s.
She was brought up in Montréal, Québec, where her father was a long-time member of the Choeur Saint-Laurent (Saint Lawrence Choir), one of the city's most prestigious choirs and a major component of the Montréal Symphony Orchestra Choir. She studied at the Montréal Conservatory of Music with Marie Daveluy, followed by work with Pamela Bowden of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, made possible by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Quebec Arts Council, and the Royal Scottish Academy.
She entered the international competition circuit to begin her career. In 1992, she won the Maggie Teyte Memorial Prize in London and the Guelph Spring Festival National Vocal Competition as First Prize winner. She entered the 1994 's-Hertogenbosch International Vocal competition in Holland, winning the Lieder Prize and the Public's Prize.
1995 was a year of successful Canadian competitions; Gauvin won the Virginia Parker Prize and the CBC Radio National Young Interpreters' Competition First Prize. By this time she was gaining a strong reputation. It was word of mouth that obtained her first recording engagement.
Harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour, who had heard her sing, asked her to join her in a project he was preparing for Analekta Records (a Quebec-based label), a production of the "Anna Maria Bach Notebook." This recording became the best-selling release in the company's history, leading to further releases: She joined the Orchestre Métropolitain in the Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont, a program of Vivaldi quartets that was nominated for the Juno Award (Canada's version of the "Grammies") and an award winning project with the original instruments group Tafelmusic of Handel arias.
Meanwhile, she had continued her winning ways in competitions with the award of recognition as the 1996 Soloist of the Year for the International French Public Radio Community.
She has sung in recital in major North American and European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), Bishopsgate Hall, Wigmore Hall, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Her recital partners have included pianists Roger Vignoles and Michael McMahon, and Marc-André Hamelin. She has sung in opera productions at Oxford, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in New York.
She frequently appears with the Montréal Chamber Music Festival and the Pusan International Chamber Music Festival in the Republic of Korea. In Canada, she has appeared with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain, the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, the CBC Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Les Violons du Roy of Québec City. With the latter she toured to several U.S. cities in the 1999-2000 season. She debuted in Boston during that season, with the Handel and Haydn Society, and in New York with the 92nd Street Y.
She has a wide repertory from the Baroque to the twentieth century, and is particularly noted for her Mozart operatic repertory, and one of the works she has most been requested to sing in concert is Benjamin Britten's Les Illuminations.
Other works in her repertory include Purcell's The Fairy Queen, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, Handel's Messiah, Semele, and Israel In Egypt, Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate, Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, and Einhorn's Voices of Light.
© TiVo
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Handel : Partenope
Classical - Released by Erato - Warner Classics on 6 Nov 2015
Gramophone: Recording of the Month24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Knoxville
Karina Gauvin, Thomas Trotter, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Marin Alsop
Classical - Released by Naxos on 1 Jan 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Marie Hubert - Fille du Roy
Karina Gauvin, Valérie Milot, Etienne Lafrance, Pierre Mclean, Quatuor Molinari, Pentaedre
Classical - Released by Les Disques ATMA Inc. on 19 Apr 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Opera & Concert Arias
Karina Gauvin, Les Violons du Roy, Bernard Labadie
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 1 Mar 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Partenope
Classical - Released by Erato - Warner Classics on 6 Nov 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56
Ensemble Caprice, Ensemble Vocal Arts-Québec, Matthias Maute, Karina Gauvin
Classical - Released by Leaf Music on 5 Nov 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Purcell: Opera Music & Arias
Les Boréades de Montréal, Francis Colpron, Karina Gauvin
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 3 Sep 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le Messie
Sacred Oratorios - Released by Tafelmusik on 1 Oct 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
HEAR MY PRAYER - Hymns and Anthems
Choir of St John's, Elora, Karina Gauvin, Noel Edison, Matthew Larkin
Classical - Released by Naxos on 18 Apr 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel Arias: Karina Gauvin
Tempo Rubato, Alexander Weimann, Karina Gauvin
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 1 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Barber: Adagio for Strings
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Karina Gauvin, Marin Alsop
Classical - Released by Unclassified on 9 Jun 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
CANTELOUBE: Songs of the Auvergne (Joseph Canteloube - Traditional)
Classical - Released by CBC on 1 Jan 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Nuits blanches: Airs d’opéra à la cour de Russie au XVIIIe siècle
Karina Gauvin, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Alexander Weimann
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 8 Mar 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Fête Galante
Karina Gauvin, Marc-André Hamelin
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 1 Jan 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Arias and Dances, Excerpts from Agrippina and Alcina
Karina Gauvin, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
Classical - Released by Analekta on 1 Jan 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Porpora, N.: Opera Arias
Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis, Karina Gauvin
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 15 Aug 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler 4
Orchestre Metropolitain, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Karina Gauvin
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 1 Feb 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Haendel : Arias and Dances, Excerpts from Agrippina and Alcina
Karina Gauvin, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
Classical - Released by Analekta on 1 Jan 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Ezio
Ann Hallenberg, Karina Gauvin, Sonia Prina, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani, Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on 1 Jan 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach
Luc Beauséjour, Karina Gauvin, Sergei Istomin
Classical - Released by Analekta on 31 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach Psaume 51 Cantate 82
Karina Gauvin, Daniel Taylor, Les Violons du Roy, Bernard Labadie
Classical - Released by ATMA Classique on 1 Oct 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo