Juliana Gondek Professor  office: (310) 794-9269  email:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Office: B427

JULIANA GONDEK, distinguished Professor of Voice and Opera Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, has performed with over 150 orchestras and opera companies worldwide, and has collaborated with such musical luminaries as Aaron Copland, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Rudolf Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, James Levine, Carlos Kleiber, Nicholas McGegan, and Robert Shaw. Her performances at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, the operas of San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Miami, St. Louis, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Hawaii, at Milan's La Scala, at the Scottish and Netherlands Operas, before a crowd of 5,000 in New York's Central Park, and at the Kennedy Center have earned her critical and audience acclaim. Festival appearances include the Göttingen and Halle (Germany) Handel Festivals, the Edinburgh Festival, the Salzburg Easter Festival, Antibe's Bel Canto Festival, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart, and the Avignon, Aldeburgh, Marlboro, Caramoor, Bard, Newport (Rhode Is.), Santa Fe, Hawaii, and Bravo! Colorado Festivals.

 As a song recitalist, Professor Gondek has sung in such famed venues as Venice's Teatro La Fenice, Berlin's National Library, Lucerne's Festival Hall, Geneva's Grand Theatre, Japan's Kitara Concert Hall, Aldeburgh Festival Hall, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim Museum, Carnegie Recital Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall, Los Angeles' Ambassador Auditorium, and Vanderbilt Newport mansion "The Breakers".  Hailed as one of America's leading interpreters of Baroque and contemporary music, Gondek has twenty Handel roles and dozens of world premieres to her credit. She has taken on the lead roles in premieres of Leonard Bernstein's "A Quiet Place", David Diamond's "The Noblest Game", Hugo Weisgall's "Esther", John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles", Bright Sheng's "The Song of Majnun", David Carlson's "Dreamkeepers," Anthony Davis' "Under the Double Moon", Jonathan Sheffer's "Blood on the Dining Room Floor, Stewart Wallace's "Harvey Milk" (recorded on Teldec) and "Hopper's Wife," Ian Krouse's "Lorca, Child of the Moon," and Roger Bourland's opera on Mexican opera star Angela Peralta, "The Dove and the Nightingale."

Ms. Gondek's discography also includes vocal chamber music on Orion (winner of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation Prize for a debut recording), Handel operas "Ottone", "Giustino", "Radamisto", and "Ariodante" (Gramophone's Record of the Year) on Harmonia Mundi, Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" on DGG's "Live from the Met" videodisc, Bright Sheng's "Songs from the Sung Dynasty" on Naxos (following performances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, a 2003 Gramophone Magazine "Top Ten" selection), "The Complete Songs of Karol Szymanowski" on Channel Classics (winner of the 2004 Fryderyk Prize [Polish "Grammy"] for Best Recording of Polish Music), and her most recent release, a recording with the Seattle Symphony and conductor Gerard Schwarz entitled "American Classics: Jewish Operas II" on Naxos for the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music (2006). Her recording of 18 songs by Roger Bourland is slated for commercial release on the Parma label early in 2013.

Professor Gondek's extensive operatic experience includes roles as varied as Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda; Verdi's Gilda, Giovanna d'Arco, Gulnara ("Il Corsaro") and Marquesa del Poggio ("Un Giorno di Regno"); Bizet's Carmen; Rossini's Bianca ("Bianca e Falliero'"); Handel's Alcina, Rodelinda, Ginevra, Theodora, and Esther; Puccini's Mimi; Rosalinde ("Die Fledermaus"); Mozart's Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira, Vitellia, Countess Almaviva, Pamina, First Lady, Despina, and Aspasia ("Mitridate"); the four heroines in "The Tales of Hoffmann;" and Pat Nixon ("Nixon in China"). More unusual engagements have included soloist in Handel's "L'Allegro" on tour with the Mark Morris Dance Group, vocal soloist with the American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House, her portrayal of Vera Stravinsky alongside stars of the "Star Trek" television series for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and her feature film debut as "The Opera Diva" in ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre's "The Song of the Lark." Among the 150+ symphonies in her solo performance credits are the New York Philharmonic (Sir André Previn), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Gerard Schwarz), the symphonies of San Francisco (Herbert Blomstedt, Sir David Willcocks, David Zinman, Bright Sheng, Donald Runnicles), Seattle (Gerard Schwarz, Nicholas McGegan), St. Louis (Sir Raymond Leppard, John Nelson), Dallas (Robert Shaw, Graeme Jenkins), Houston (Ward Holmquist), Detroit (Jerzy Semkow), Indianapolis (John Nelson, Sir Raymond Leppard, Jack Everly), Toronto (Gunther Herbig), Montreal (Charles Dutoit), Vancouver (Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Jack Everly), Hong Kong (Samuel Wong), L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Armin Jordan, Nello Santi), the Netherlands Radio Symphony (Markus Stenz), the Brucknerorchester Linz (Jerzy Semkow), the Spanish National Orchestra of Madrid (Arpad Joo), and the Philharmonia Baroque and Freiburger Baroque Orchestras (Nicholas McGegan).

Ms. Gondek is highly sought-after as a master teacher. She has lectured and taught master classes at Los Angeles Opera, Manhattan School of Music, Rice University, University of Chicago, University of Southern California, and numerous other top North American music schools and conservatories, for the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival where she serves as Co-Artistic Director, as co-faculty with Nicholas McGegan at the Baroque Academy of the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, at the Geneva Conservatory and Florence's Cherubini Conservatory, in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, at Summer Songfest in Malibu and Leavenworth, WA, and at the Idyllwild Summer Academy.  She has served as Master Teacher and judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, National Opera Association, the NATS Competition, the MacAllister Awards, Denver Lyric Opera Guild Prize, Classical Singer National College and High School Competitions, and "YoungArts" (National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts), and has judged such prestigious international competitions as the Geneva, Spoleto, and Jose Iturbi International Singing Competitions. She has frequently taught and performed as Visiting Artist at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and at the Shanghai Conservatory. She is active as panelist and consultant for OperaAMERICA's national conferences and workshops for professional singers, and was appointed by the U.S. State Department as a Fulbright Foundation Reviewer in Music.

Juliana Gondek, a native of Pasadena, California, graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California, began professional life as a free-lance violinist and musical theater singer-dancer, then apprenticed with San Diego Opera. She studied singing under Kathleen Darragh in Los Angeles, Marlena Malas in New York, and Sir Peter Pears in Aldeburgh. Her international career was launched after winning back-to-back Gold Medals in the Geneva International Singing Competition and the Barcelona "Francisco Viñas" International Singing Competition.

Visit her web site at www.julianagondek.com