Siri Thornhill
Encyclopedia
Siri Karoline Thornhill, born in England, is a Norwegian classical soprano
for concert and opera, known for singing music of Johann Sebastian Bach
.
with Marit Storækre and continued with a scholarship from the Norwegian government at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague
with Marius van Altena, Rita Dams and Diane Forlano. In 1995 she graduated with distinction. She took master-classes with Cristina Deutekom
, Elly Ameling
, Ton Koopman
, Beata Heuer-Christen, Anna Reynolds
and Jean Cox.
Thornhill has recorded Bach cantata
s with Sigiswald Kuijken
and La Petite Bande
, the soloists also forming the choir. With them she performed among other cantatas Bach's cantata for the fourth Sunday after Trinity
, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177
, at the Rheingau Musik Festival
in the Eibingen Abbey
.
She appeared in Antonio Lotti
's Requiem with the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor of Thomas Hengelbrock
, and in Handel's Messiah
with the Knabenchor Hannover conducted by Jörg Breiding. She recorded A German Requiem with Klaus Mertens
and the choir of the Bremen Cathedral
, conducted by Wolfgang Helbich.
She has collaborated with the Camerata Köln and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
in the project Dieterich Buxtehude – Opera Omnia
. In 2009 she recorded the Bach solo cantatas for soprano with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and the Cologne Bach Chorus, conducted by Helmut Müller-Brühl
, reviewed by George Chien:
Thornhill has sung Baroque
opera parts, such as Clomiri in Handel's Imeneo
with the Capella Augustina conducted by Andreas Spering at the Halle Opera House
, in Rameau‘s Dardanus
in Freiburg, in carnival music from Venice and Florence with Hengelbrock at the Komische Oper Berlin
, in Alessandro Stradella
's San Giovanni Battista
at the Quedlinburg
Cathedral, and in Reinhard Keiser
's Sieg der fruchtbaren Pomona. In August 2006 she made her debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni
with Sigiswald Kuijken at the Festival de l'Opera in Beaune
and the Bruges
Early Music Festival. She has also appeared in opera premieres of the 20th and 21st century such as Odysseus's Women of Louis Andriessen
in Rotterdam
and Amsterdam
.
She has appeared at international festivals such as the Handel Festival Halle, the Handel Festival Göttingen and the Lucerne Festival
.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
for concert and opera, known for singing music of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
.
Professional career
Thornhill studied singing first in her hometown StavangerStavanger
Stavanger is a city and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.Stavanger municipality has a population of 126,469. There are 197,852 people living in the Stavanger conurbation, making Stavanger the fourth largest city, but the third largest urban area, in Norway...
with Marit Storækre and continued with a scholarship from the Norwegian government at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
with Marius van Altena, Rita Dams and Diane Forlano. In 1995 she graduated with distinction. She took master-classes with Cristina Deutekom
Cristina Deutekom
Cristina Deutekom is a Dutch opera singer. Renowned for her coloratura technique, she is also known as Christine Deutekom and Christina Deutekom....
, Elly Ameling
Elly Ameling
Elisabeth Sara "Elly" Ameling is a Dutch soprano.-Career:Ameling was born in Rotterdam. She studied with Bodi Rapp, Jo Bollekamp, Sem Dresden and Jacoba Dresden-Dhont and later French art song with Pierre Bernac...
, Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman is a conductor, organist and harpsichordist.Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ , harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam...
, Beata Heuer-Christen, Anna Reynolds
Anna Reynolds (singer)
Anna Reynolds is an English classical mezzo-soprano and contralto singer in opera and concert.- Professional career :Ann Reynolds first studied piano, then voice at the Royal Academy of Music...
and Jean Cox.
Thornhill has recorded Bach cantata
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
s with Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on authentic instruments.-Biography:Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble of Brussels between 1964 and 1972 and formed La Petite Bande in 1972...
and La Petite Bande
La Petite Bande
La Petite Bande is a Belgium-based ensemble specialising in Baroque music played on period instruments. They are particularly known for their recordings of works by Corelli, Rameau, Handel, and Bach.-History:...
, the soloists also forming the choir. With them she performed among other cantatas Bach's cantata for the fourth Sunday after Trinity
Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity...
, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177
Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177
Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ , BWV 177, is a church cantata of Johann Sebastian Bach He composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 6 July 1732....
, at the Rheingau Musik Festival
Rheingau Musik Festival
The Rheingau Musik Festival is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres...
in the Eibingen Abbey
Eibingen Abbey
Eibingen Abbey is a community of Benedictine nuns in Eibingen near Rüdesheim in Hesse, Germany.The original community was founded in 1165 by Hildegard von Bingen...
.
She appeared in Antonio Lotti
Antonio Lotti
Antonio Lotti was an Italian composer of classical music.Lotti was born in Venice, although his father Matteo was Kapellmeister at Hanover at the time. In 1682, Lotti began studying with Lodovico Fuga and Giovanni Legrenzi, both of whom were employed at St Mark's Basilica, Venice's principal church...
's Requiem with the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor of Thomas Hengelbrock
Thomas Hengelbrock
Thomas Hengelbrock is a German violinist, musicologist, stage director and conductor.- Biography :Thomas Hengelbrock studied the violin with Rainer Kussmaul and started his career in Würzburg and Freiburg im Breisgau...
, and in Handel's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
with the Knabenchor Hannover conducted by Jörg Breiding. She recorded A German Requiem with Klaus Mertens
Klaus Mertens
Klaus Mertens is a German bass and bass-baritone singer who is known especially for his interpretation of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.-Professional career:Klaus Mertens took singing lessons while attending school...
and the choir of the Bremen Cathedral
Bremen Cathedral
Bremen Cathedral , dedicated to St. Peter, is a church situated in the market square in the center of Bremen, in northern Germany. The cathedral belongs to the Bremian Evangelical Church, a member of the Protestant umbrella organisation named Evangelical Church in Germany...
, conducted by Wolfgang Helbich.
She has collaborated with the Camerata Köln and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir is a Dutch early-music group based in Amsterdam.The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir was created in two stages by the conductor, organist and harpsichordist Ton Koopman. He founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979 and the Amsterdam Baroque Choir in...
in the project Dieterich Buxtehude – Opera Omnia
Dieterich Buxtehude – Opera Omnia
Dieterich Buxtehude - Opera Omnia is a project to record the complete works of the German Baroque composer Dieterich Buxtehude.- History :...
. In 2009 she recorded the Bach solo cantatas for soprano with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and the Cologne Bach Chorus, conducted by Helmut Müller-Brühl
Helmut Müller-Brühl
Helmut Müller-Brühl is a German conductor.Müller-Brühl is a former pupil of Hermann Abendroth, the founder of Cologne Chamber Orchestra. In 1958, Müller-Brühl invited this orchestra to be the principal orchestra for concerts given at his family home, Schloss Brühl...
, reviewed by George Chien:
"The present disc reveals an appealing vocal quality—clean, agile, superbly controlled, secure throughout the range—serving an appropriate understanding of the texts."
Thornhill has sung Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
opera parts, such as Clomiri in Handel's Imeneo
Imeneo
Imeneo is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Silvio Stampiglia's Imeneo. Handel had begun composition in September 1738, but did not complete the score until 1740...
with the Capella Augustina conducted by Andreas Spering at the Halle Opera House
Halle Opera House
The Halle Opera House is an opera house in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. Originally named the Halle Town Theatre , the theatre was built in 1886. A bomb attack on 31 March 1945 destroyed much of the original building. Restorative work ensued a few years later, and the theatre reopened in 1951 under the...
, in Rameau‘s Dardanus
Dardanus (opera)
Dardanus is an opera in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The French libretto was by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère.-Performance history:It was first performed at the Académie de musique in Paris on November 19, 1739...
in Freiburg, in carnival music from Venice and Florence with Hengelbrock at the Komische Oper Berlin
Komische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is an opera company in Berlin, Germany, which specializes in German language productions of opera, operetta and musicals....
, in Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...
's San Giovanni Battista
San Giovanni Battista
San Giovanni Battista or dell'Autostrada del Sole is a church in Florence, Italy.The church is formally named after John the Baptist but has also earned the name Church of the Freeway of the Sun for its location between autostrada del Sole and the A11 Firenze-Mare highway.The design of the church...
at the Quedlinburg
Quedlinburg
Quedlinburg is a town located north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. In 1994 the medieval court and the old town was set on the UNESCO world heritage list....
Cathedral, and in Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser was a popular German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas, and in 1745 Johann Adolph Scheibe considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann , but his work was largely forgotten for many...
's Sieg der fruchtbaren Pomona. In August 2006 she made her debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
with Sigiswald Kuijken at the Festival de l'Opera in Beaune
Beaune
Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy in the Cote d'Or department in eastern France. It is located between Paris and Geneva.Beaune is one of the key wine centers in France and the annual wine auction of the Hospices de Beaune is the primary wine auction in France...
and the Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
Early Music Festival. She has also appeared in opera premieres of the 20th and 21st century such as Odysseus's Women of Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
.
She has appeared at international festivals such as the Handel Festival Halle, the Handel Festival Göttingen and the Lucerne Festival
Lucerne Festival
- History :The festival was founded in 1938 with a series of concerts in the gardens of Wagner's villa conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists for the concert...
.
External links
- Siri Thornhill
- Siri Thornhill at the Bach-Verein Köln (in German)
- Entries for recordings by Siri Thornhill on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...