Juliet Petrus

Coloratura soprano, author, and educator Juliet Petrus has become a trusted Western interpreter of Chinese vocal music worldwide. Highlighted performances of repertoire in Mandarin include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Beijing National Center for the Performing Arts, Shanghai Symphony, Chinese Central Television (CCTV), Lincoln Center, and US Tour. She is a proud alumna of the iSING! International Young Artists’ Program. She was a Confucius Institute scholar at Tongji University in Shanghai to study Mandarin, as well as a scholarship recipient to continue language studies at Shanghai University. Her invited solo recital and masterclass appearances with pianist, Lydia Qiu, include a ten-city tour of Northwest China, as well as Tianjin, Nanjing University of the Arts, Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, Shenyang Conservatory, Jinan, and concerts in Chongqing. Through her album A Great Distance: A Collection of Chinese and American Art Song (MSR Classics, 2015) with Ms. Qiu, and book Singing in Mandarin: A Guide to Chinese Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), co-written with Katherine Chu (Tianjin Juilliard), Juliet is passionate about educating Western singers and audiences about Chinese vocal music. In 2020, she received the Confucius Institute US ‘People to People’ Award for her work helping to unite the two cultures through classical music, a cause to which she remains dedicated in her performance and teaching. Western repertoire performances include roles and solo appearances with the Hamburger Kammeroper (Germany), Austin Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, St Louis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Walt Disney Hall, Baden Stadttheater (Austria), Grimeborn Opera Festival (London), and Florentine Opera (Milwaukee). While she has worked professionally as a violist, pianist, and choreographer, she holds degrees in voice performance from the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. She is currently on scholarship pursuing her doctorate at the Royal College of Music in London where she is focusing on pedagogical methods to best to address the challenges faced by Western-language speakers learning to sing in Mandarin, as well as native Mandarin speakers learning to sing Western operatic repertoire. 

Faculties / departments: Research

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