Soprano
April Fredrick began her musical training as a violinist, combining her musical and literary interests through the course of undergraduate vocal studies at Northwestern College in Minnesota and an MMus and PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Jane Highfield and coaches Iain Ledingham and Dominic Wheeler. While there, she continued as a strong proponent of contemporary music, working regularly with fellow composers at both Northwestern College and the Royal Academy as well as performing with Laurence Cummings and the ensembles of the RAM Historical Performance department.
April was a semifinalist in the 2009 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and the 2009 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, and she appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Robert Winston’s Musical Analysis: Ivor Gurney’ in connection with her recent doctorate exploring how performers and audiences engage with the Gurney’s late songs. On the recital platform, she appeared numerous times with the RAM Lyric Song Salon, gave two recitals as part of the Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel Bicentenary conference, was a RAM representative for the first Europaisches Liedforum in Berlin, and took part in the 2009 Young Songmaker’s Almanac. She has performed at St. John’s Smith Square, the Holywell Music Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall. On the opera stage, her roles include Fido in Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan, the Governess in The Turn of the Screw, Medea in Handel’s Teseo, Iris in Semele, and Dido in Dido and Aeneas. Recent concert performances have included Poulenc’s Gloria, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, and Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Elysian Singers and Paradiso Baroque. Forthcoming engagements include Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 with the Leamington Chamber Orchestra and a recital as part of the 2011 Newbury Spring Festival.