Berlin-based soprano, Rachel Fenlon, is an artist on the rise. Quickly establishing herself in the operatic repertoire of Mozart, Handel, and Rossini; in the vast lied repertoire, from French and German to contemporary English works, and in demand as an oratorio soloist, Rachel enjoys a diverse and uniquely varied solo career.

Recent career hilights on the operatic stage include Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), and Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance) with Vancouver Opera; Nannetta (Falstaff) and Queen Guinevere (Camelot) with Pacific Opera Victoria; Lisa (Das Land des Lächelns) with the Vancouver Symphony, and Mimi (La Boheme) with Bard on the Beach Festival. As an oratorio soloist, Rachel’s recent projects include Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonelle with Maestro Alberto Zedda, Handel’s Messiah with the Victoria and Vancouver Symphonies, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Brahms’ Requiem with the Vancouver Bach Choir, Bach’s Magnificat with Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Bach’s Cantata 51 with Early Music Victoria, and Eriks Esenvald’s Passion and Ressurection with the Borealis String Quartet at the Chan Centre. The passionate recitalist Rachel is, she has performed countless recitals over the past few years, exploring repertoire from Schubert and Berg, to Messiaen and Britten. Most recently, Rachel performed Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Nine Settings of Lorine Niedecker with cellist Adrian Brendel in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and a recital of Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliées at Pacific Opera Victoria’s Baumann Centre.

Also a trained pianist, Rachel has recently begun an exciting new avenue of exploring art song from the piano, and accompanying herself in recital. She has performed several works of Schubert this season from the piano, and is currently assembling a programme of songs, from Schubert to Kurt Weill, which lend themselves to this unique style.

Rachel is an alumna of the Vancouver Opera Young Artists Program, the Toronto Summer Music Festival Fellows Programme, the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, the Vancouver International Song Institute, the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, and the Rossini Opera Academy. She holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Opera Performance from the University of British Columbia. Rachel has performed masterclasses with Gerald Finley, Alberto Zedda, Craig Rutenberg, Carol Isaac, Giuseppe Finzi, Stuart Hamilton, and Cameron Stowe. Her vocal training began under Nancy Hermiston and Judith Forst, and she currently studies with renowned teacher Neil Semer.

Upcoming projects include collaborations with composers Marco Stroppa and Dinuk Wijeratne in Lunenburg, song recitals in Berlin, pops concerts with the Victoria Symphony, and the Crear Programme for singers in Scotland with Malcolm Martineau.

True to her diverse artistic nature, Rachel continues to compose, write poetry and literature, and play piano, and she collaborates in these mediums as frequently as possible. She has received awards from the Victoria Conservatory of Music and the Royal Conservatory of Music Toronto for her compositions, and is currently working on a chamber opera, a set of symphonic miniatures, and a song cycle for piano and voice, set to a collection of contemporary poets of her generation.