About Me
Hailed as having a “juicy” and
“colorful” tone as well as a “flair for comic mugging,” mezzo-soprano
Jennifer Blades has been active in the Baltimore area for over a decade
as a classical singer, performer in opera and cabaret, and as a
director. Last season, Baltimore audiences had the opportunity to see
Ms. Blades in several different venues including Opera Vivente, An die
Musik, the Cabaret at Germano's, Young Victorian Theatre, the Theatre
Project, with the Harford Choral Society, and with the Bach Concert
Series. Opera credits include Mrs. Herring ( Albert Herring), Public Opinion ( Orpheus in the Underworld), Arminda (Mozart’s La finta giardiniera), the Mother (Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors), Dorabella ( Così fan tutte), Bianca (Britten's The Rape of Lucretia), the Sorceress ( Dido and Aeneas), and Narciso (Handel’s Agrippina) for Opera
Vivente; Second Nursemaid (Kurt Weill’s Street Scene) for Wolf
Trap Opera; and Dinah ( Trouble in Tahiti), Donna Elvira ( Don Giovanni) and Valencienne ( The Merry Widow) as a guest artist for Opera
AACC. Ms. Blades has also performed Ruth in Pirates of Penzance, Tessa in The Gondoliers and Mad Margaret in Ruddigore with the Young Victorian Theatre.
She spent the summer of 2003 as a member of the Young Artist Ensemble
at Bel Canto at Caramoor under the direction of Maestro Will
Crutchfield. Ms. Blades has performed the role of Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti
for Baltimore’s Artscape
with Opera
Vivente and this year performed in the quartet of I Hear America Singing for Artscape
with Opera
Vivente as well. An avid cabaret singer, Ms. Blades has performed four solo shows at An
die Musik and the Cabaret at Germano's Trattoria in Baltimore: Desire, Despair, Deceit and Delight: A Holiday Cabaret (December 2005); A Promised Kiss: Songs of Spring (April 2006) with pianist Jerome Tan; My Funny Valentine (February 2008), a cabaret tale of looking for and finding love, with pianist Eileen Cornett; and most recently, Life, Love & Laughter, based on Kurt Weill's Americana,
with pianist James Harp (February 2009). In the summer of 2007, Ms.
Blades had the opportunity to study with and perform alongside some of
cabaret’s greatest musicians, Andrea Marcovicci, Shelly Markham, Karen
Mason, Christopher Denny, Barry Kleinbort, and Norma Curley at the Art
of Cabaret Professional Workshop in Colorado. She has also performed in
the club Don’t Tell Mama. She returns to both Germano's Trattoria and An
die Musik in December with her holiday show, Desire, Despair, Deceit, and Delight: A Holiday Cabaret. At home on stage whether singing or
acting, Ms. Blades was featured in the Pantolites’ first production of
the British-style pantomime tradition, Puss in Boots, as
the Good Fairy Proverbia, as well as its revival the following year. Of her performance, The Baltimore
Sun stated, “Much of the magic in this show is
spread by the Good Fairy narrator, Proverbia, who is embodied with
storybook charm by Jennifer Blades.” The online publication Broadway World wrote that Ms.
Blades “play[ed] her role with all of the requisite charm and
goody-ness, but with a sly wink to being a modern woman.” Ms. Blades has been a featured soloist
with the Handel
Choir of Baltimore, the Harford
Choral Society, the Bach
Concert Series, Anne
Arundel Community College's Chorus and
Orchestra, and Howard
Community College’s Chorus and Orchestra. Credits
include Mozart's Grand
Mass in c, the Bach
Magnificat, Handel’s Messiah,
Vivaldi’s Gloria,
the Duruflé Requiem,
the Kodály Missa Brevis,
Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass,
Handel's Hospital
Foundling Anthem, and several Bach Cantatas. Ms. Blades received a Masters of Music
and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory
where she is
a faculty member and stage director with the Opera Department. She
teaches Cabaret Styles and Acting for Opera, and directs the Outreach
Program's touring productions of Papageno, Hansel & Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. For the 2007 season, she directed Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and as well as three of the Opera Etudes program, Epiphanies in April 2008. Past Opera Etudes productions include three of the Faces of Myth in 2001 and three of the Facets of Freedom in 2006. Other directing credits include Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera
AACC. Ms. Blades directed The Telephone and The Medium for Opera
AACC this past fall and immediately followed that in October with Papageno for Peabody Opera Outreach. She will direct Conrad Susa's Transformations for Peabody Chamber Opera in February 2010. Additional upcoming engagements include performances in November of the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors for Opera
AACC, a performance with Club OV in their annual holiday cabaret, soloist with the Bach
Concert Series in April 2010, Second Lady in The Magic Flute with Opera
Vivente in May 2010, and the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas for Opera
AACC
in June 2010. Ms. Blades is also artist-manager of the Mt. Vernon
Voices, a holiday caroling quartet. For ten seasons, she sang with the
Baltimore Opera both as a member of the legendary Baltimore Opera
Chorus and its Education Program and is deeply saddened by the loss of
this venerable institution. In addition to being on the faculty at the
Peabody Conservatory, Ms. Blades enjoys being on the voice faculty at
Anne Arundel Community College.
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Upcoming performances
October 31, 2009, 10:00 am, 12:00 noon: Papageno (Stage Director)-based on Mozart's The Magic Flute Open Dress RehearsalPeabody Opera Outreach, Baltimore, MD
November 28, 2009, 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm: Mother, Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors Opera AACC, Annapolis, MD
December 11,
2009, 8:00 pm: Singer, All I Want For Christmas... Club OV (Opera Vivente), Baltimore, MD
December 19, 2009, 7:30 pm: Desire, Despair, Deceit, and Delight: A Holiday Cabaret (cabaret
show), with Eileen Cornett, piano.
Germano's
Trattoria, Baltimore, MD
December 20, 2009, 8:00 pm: Desire, Despair, Deceit, and Delight: A Holiday Cabaret (cabaret
show), with Eileen Cornett, piano.
An die Musik, Baltimore, MD February 18-20, 2010, 7:30 pm; February 21, 2010, 3:00 pm: Transformations (Stage Director) Conrad Susa, composer Anne Sexton, libretto Peabody Chamber Opera at Theatre Project Baltimore, MD
April 4, 2010, 4:00 pm: Alto Soloist, Cantata 67, Bach Concert Series Christ Lutheran Church, Baltimore, MD
May 14, May 20 May 22, 2010, 7:30 pm; May 16, 2010, 2:00 pm: Second Lady Mozart's The Magic Flute, Opera Vivente Baltimore, MD
June 4-5, 2010, 8:00 pm; June 6, 2010, 3 pm: Sorceress, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
Opera AACC, Annapolis, MD
Other great stuff
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