Jessica Aszodi
Mezzo-soprano / improvisor /
performance artist
︎ Marga van den Meydenburg
Aszodi's career could best be
described as genre-bounding and label-defying. The Australian-born vocalist has
premiered dozens of new pieces, performed long neglected works, devised
pieces, projects and festivals, sung roles from musicals and the standard operatic
repertoire, while collaborating with a constellation of artists from the far
reaches of the cultural spectrum.
“Jessica Aszodi was superb as Bella, given the most lyrical
music and having the widest range of emotions to express, moving believably
between teasing sex kitten and committed revolutionary”
- Armageddon / Tokyo, Opera Magazine, 2020
- Armageddon / Tokyo, Opera Magazine, 2020
Praised for its “utmost security
and power” (Chicago Tribune), Jessica’s voice has an unusual range, both in
terms of colour and pitch, making it possible to perform repertoire across
genres (from experimental to baroque, music theatre to opera) and voice types,
from contralto works such as Boulez' Le Marteau sans maître to
soprano gems like Grisey's Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil.
Jessica has performed as soloist with ensembles and opera houses as diverse as ICE (NY), the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, London Sinfonietta, Wiener Volksoper, Nederlands Reisoper, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Pinchgut Opera, the Tirolean Symphony Orchestra, Victorian Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, and in the chamber series of the San Diego and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. She has sung in festivals around the world, including Klangspuren, Beethoven Festival Bonn, Resonant Bodies, Vivid Sydney, Aspen Music Festival, BIFEM, the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Festivals, Darmstadt, Aldeburgh, Tectonics and Tanglewood.
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Jessica has performed as soloist with ensembles and opera houses as diverse as ICE (NY), the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, London Sinfonietta, Wiener Volksoper, Nederlands Reisoper, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Pinchgut Opera, the Tirolean Symphony Orchestra, Victorian Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, and in the chamber series of the San Diego and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. She has sung in festivals around the world, including Klangspuren, Beethoven Festival Bonn, Resonant Bodies, Vivid Sydney, Aspen Music Festival, BIFEM, the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Festivals, Darmstadt, Aldeburgh, Tectonics and Tanglewood.
“Highlights that deserve mention include
the virtuosic whimsy demonstrated by Jessica Aszodi”
- New York Times
︎ Marga van den Meydenburg
In Atlas of the Sky by Liza Lim, with Speak Percussion and participant ensemble, Melbourne 2018
︎ Bryony Marks
︎ Bryony Marks
Her operatic roles include Eve (Stockhausen’s Dienstag aus Licht), Socrates (Satie’s Socrates), Aminta (Mozart’s Il re pastore), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Sesto (Guilio Cesare), Popova (Walton's The Bear), Rose (Elliot Carter's What Next?) and Echo (Ariadne auf Naxos). She has performed the world premieres of operas by composers such as Liza Lim, Augusta Read Thomas and most recently Dai Fujkura (title role in Dream of Armageddon / New National Theatre Tokyo).
Aszodi has twice been nominated for the Australian Greenroom Awards as ‘best female operatic performer’ - in both the leading and supporting categories.
In her native Australia she was described as “one of the finest actress-singers in the country”
- The Age.
In 2019 she was awarded “Performance of the Year” by the Australian Art Music Awards for Liza Lim’s epic “Atlas of the Sky” with Speak Percussion. She holds a Masters in Experimental Art from the University of California San Diego and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Queensland Conservatorium, where she focused on subjectivity and embodiment practices in the creation of new work. Jessica is also a writer and educator who has written scholarly articles for several books and journals.
Jessica is on the steering committee of the online politics and culture magazine “Shred”, and is co-founder (with composer Jessie Marino) of ‘Worst Behaviour’, a series for experimental music and performance at KM28 in her adopted city of Berlin.
︎ artist website
︎︎︎ repertoire
︎ You Tube
︎ ︎ ︎
Armageddon world premiereNew National Theatre, TokyoNov 2020 / composer Dai Fujikura / directed by Lydia Steier / conducted by Kazushi Ono ︎ Naoko Nagasawa
Pierrot Lunaire with Adelaide Symphony Chamber Music Series 2018, self portrait