Soprano Anna Bjerken is finishing her bachelor’s degree at the Eastman School of Music studying vocal performance with soprano Kiera Duffy. A passionate interpreter of both early and contemporary repertoire, Anna has performed with the Boston Early Music Festival, Mostly Modern Festival, and Eastman Opera Theater singing the roles of Margarita Xirgu in Golijov’s Ainadamar, Agrippina in Handel’s Agrippina, and covering Octavia in the North American premier of Reinhard Keiser’s Octavia. In addition, she created the roles of Em in the chamber premiere of Robert Patterson’s New York Stories, and Leeta in Arturo Fernandez’s operetta Leeta. This season, she performed with Opera at Artpark and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in their production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, and portrayed Leona’s Mother in Eastman Opera Theater’s production of Christopher Cerrone’s In a Grove. Additionally, she sang the role of Orfeo in Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo for Eastman Collegium Musicum’s concert production under the direction of Paul O’Dette. Anna has extensive choral experience, singing the soprano solos in pieces such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Gloria, Charpentier’s Le Reniement de St. Pierre, and Bach’s Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot (BWV 39), Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott (BWV 129), and Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (BWV 80). She has sung with groups such as the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, Ensemble Signal & Eastman’s Musica Nova, Voices Rochester, and Eastman’s Schola Cantorum, as well as in Eastman’s Empire Film and Media Ensemble film-in-concert productions of La La Land, Elf, and Titanic.
Mayfest 