She worked as a secretary for Chartered Accountants, Routley & Routley from 1982 to 1983 and then for Opera Australia from 1984 to 1987 in the artistic and marketing departments creating the company's photographic and audio visual archives. In 1986 she was awarded the George Sautelle Prize for outstanding potential, and came second in the 32nd Shell Aria contest at the Canberra School of Music.[1] That same year she won "The Marianne Mathy" first prize at the Australian Singing Competition (ASC).[2] Within a year she appeared in a radio concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under David Agler,[3] She spent 1987 in London, studying singing privately with Vida Harford and numerous vocal coaches before being asked to join Opera Australia's Young Artists' Programme in 1988. That year, she was one of eight artists chosen to perform highlights of opera and operetta in the Great Hall at the opening of the new Parliament House, Canberra.[4]
She continued her vocal studies throughout her career working with such teachers and coaches as Sena Jurinac, György Fischer, Ernest St John Metz, Rita Loving and David Harper.
Operatic career
Janes performed as a principal mezzo soprano from 1988 to 2014 throughout Australia, UK and Europe.
Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation and Elizabeth Connell Scholarship Trust
In 2010, Janes became the CEO and Artistic Director and was a founding director of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation, a Sydney based charity that provides scholarships for young singers. She created of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award in 2011, one of Australia's major operatic singing competitions. In 2014, she created the Sydney International Song Prize to encourage Art Song in Australia. To date, the Foundation has awarded over $1million in scholarships to young musicians.
In 2012, she was asked by the South African soprano Elizabeth Connell, prior to her death, to create a scholarship in her name and to be a founding trustee for the Elizabeth Connell Scholarship Trust. Janes created the Elizabeth Connell International Singing Competition for Dramatic Sopranos in 2014 which was presented under the umbrella of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation.[7] To date it has awarded over $450,000 to aspiring female singers.[8]
She gives Masterclasses for young emerging singers and has been a judge for many of the major singing competitions throughout Australia including the Australian Singing Competition, Sydney Eisteddfod, Bathurst Eisteddfod and the Herald Sun Aria competition.[9] She is the principal judge for the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award and the Elizabeth Connell Prize.[10]
In 2020, she wrote the Introduction and co-produced Richard Bonynge's book Chalet Monet: Inside the Home of Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge, published by Melbourne Books.
Charity work
In 2004, she was invited to perform at Australia House in London for the Tate Memorial Trust, conducted by Richard Bonynge in the presence of H.R.H. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwell. Throughout her performing career she has performed in concert for numerous charities including for Opera Australia, Aids research, Deaf & Blind Charity and Children's Hospital, Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation, Opera & Arts Support Group, Tait Memorial Trust in London.
Positions
1988 – 2007 Principal Artist with Opera Australia
1992 – 2014 Freelance Principal Opera Singer
2010 Founding Director of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation
2010 – present CEO and Artistic Director of the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation
2012 Founding Trustee for the Elizabeth Connell Scholarship
2012 - present CEO and Artistic Director of the Elizabeth Connell Prize
Joan Sutherland My Favourites 2020 CD (Decca Article piece)
Romantic French Arias Joan Sutherland CD (Decca Article piece)
Related Research Articles
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s to the 1980s.
Marilyn Berneice Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors, and has won four Grammy Awards.
Richard Alan Bonynge is an Australian conductor and pianist. He is the widower of Australian dramatic coloratura soprano Dame Joan Sutherland. Bonynge conducted virtually all of Sutherland's operatic performances from 1962 until her retirement in 1990.
Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano remembered as "one of the defining singers of her generation". Her voice, "a paradoxical voice — larger than life yet intensely human, brilliant yet warm, lyric yet dramatic" — "was the kind you recognize after one bar, and never forget", wrote Cori Ellison in Opera News.
Alberto Remedios was a British operatic tenor, especially noted for his interpretations of Wagner's heldentenor roles.
Margreta Elkins was an Australian mezzo-soprano. She sang at The Royal Opera with Opera Australia and other companies, but turned down offers to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, Bayreuth and Glyndebourne. She recorded alongside sopranos such as Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland.
Christine Brewer is an American soprano opera singer.
Isobel Buchanan is a Scottish operatic soprano.
Lauris Margaret Elms is an Australian retired contralto, renowned for her roles in opera and lieder and as a recording artist.
Joan Carden AO OBE is an Australian operatic soprano. She has been described as "a worthy successor to Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Joan Sutherland" and was sometimes known as "the other Joan" or "The People's Diva". She was a Principal Soprano with Opera Australia for 32 years, and was particularly associated with the title roles of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca and Madama Butterfly. However, she sang over 50 other roles, from the 18th century, including virtually all the Mozart heroines, through to works by contemporary composers.
Sarah Crane is an Australian operatic soprano.
Kathryn Shauna Selby AM is an Australian classical pianist. She is often known as Kathy Selby.
Milijana Nikolic is an operatic mezzo-soprano.
Andrew Goodwin is an Australian born operatic tenor.
Bernadette Eileen Cullen is an Australian dramatic mezzo-soprano.
Frances Elizabeth Connell was a South African-born operatic mezzo-soprano, and later soprano, whose career took place mainly in the United Kingdom and Australia.
John Longmuir is a Scottish-born Australian tenor. Known primarily for operatic roles, he is also in demand on the concert platform and has appeared as a judge on channel seven's music competition show 'All Together Now'. Noted for his "generous voice, bright ringing vocal quality and legato phrasing" His operatic studies took place at the Australian Opera Studio. In 2019 John received his first Helpmann Award nomination, for his role as the Captain, in Berg's Wozzeck, for Opera Australia.
Claire Barnett-Jones is a British mezzo-soprano. She was a finalist and won the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the 2021 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. She was the Sir John Tomlinson Fellow at English National Opera, a Samling Artist Britten Pears Artist and Independent Opera Fellow.
The Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation is an Australian organisation based in Sydney, founded by the Australian soprano Joan Sutherland and her husband, conductor and promoter Richard Bonynge. Its purpose is to assist young opera artists study bel canto opera, chiefly in the form of annual awards established in 2011, principal of which is the Bel Canto Award, ranging between $30,000 and $50,000.
Rosemary Tuck is an Australian-British concert pianist and recording artist. She has researched and performed significant world premiere recordings, including the complete concerti and concertinos of Carl Czerny.
↑ "Today's radio". The Canberra Times. Vol.61, no.18, 772. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 25 February 1987. p.20. Retrieved 23 September 2023– via National Library of Australia.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
