“Her soprano is bright and agile, and she uses vibrato and ornamentation vividly to extract telling nuances from words and music. Mercer brings equal expressive vibrancy to the amorous, hedonistic and sorrowful feelings in these delectable pieces.” (Gramophone)
With a soprano voice often described as luminous and dazzling, Canadian Shannon Mercer is equally praised for her profound yet witty acting ability and stage presence. An artist of uncommon musical artistry whose passion for her artform embraces repertoire ranging from early to contemporary music, Shannon maintains a challenging balance of opera, concert and recital appearances.
2011-2012 SEASON
Shannon’s 2011-2012 seasons begins in her hometown of Ottawa with JUNO partners Ensemble Caprice in a concert performance of their highly acclaimed recording collaboration Salsa Baroque which blends the music of Latin America and Spain of the 17th and 18th centuries. Shannon then joins the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a program of opera arias as they embark on an educational tour to Sault Ste-Marie and Sudbury. She appears in Montréal several times throughout the season: in October to celebrate the grand opening of the Bourgie Concert Hall in Montreal’s Musée des beaux-arts, in January once again with Ensemble Caprice for the Magnificats by both J.S. Bach and Arvo Pärt, and in April for Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater with Les Violons du Roy and a concert with McGill’s Baroque Orchestra.
Engagements in the US include a West-Coast tour with Les Voix Baroques, Handel’s Messiah with Mercury Baroque in Houston, Carissimi Oratorios with Pacific Musicworks and Maestro Stephen Stubbs, Mozart’s Requiem with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, and Early Handel Cantatas with Tragicomedia conducted by Stephen Stubbs in Boston and New York. Other appearances include Bach Cantatas with Early Music Vancouver, a celebration of chanson by Gabriel Fauré with the Aldeburgh Connection in Toronto, a Christmas concert with Thirteen Strings in Ottawa, and two concerts at Toronto’s Koerner Hall: in Elgar’s The Kingdom with the Pax Christi Chorale and in Poulenc’s Gloria with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
Particularly praised for her performances of contemporary music, Shannon reprises her role in Ana Sokolovic’s Svadba (The Wedding) for The Queen of Puddings Music Theatre at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre and debuts in John Beckwith’s opera Crazy to Kill at the Enwave Theatre also in Toronto.
RECENT PERFORMANCES
Last season featured a tour in Canada of Ana Sokolovic’s Love Songs, a one-woman virtuosic tour-de-force opera produced by The Queen of Puddings Music Theatre which met with enthusiastic response at the 2010 Holland Festival, Bach’s St. John Passion with the Arion Baroque Orchestra (recorded by ATMA), as well as the same work with the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. She performed throughout the season with Les Voix Baroques, including a concert in Québec City for the Festival des Musiques Sacrées and on her inaugural tour of Colombia, sang Mozart’s Requiem with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Vivaldi’s Montezuma with Mercury Baroque in Houston, and a special Young People’s concert entitled The Bear with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
The role of Pamina in Die Zauberflöte has figured prominently on Shannon’s recent calendar, having performed it with Opera Lyra Ottawa, Opera Hamilton, and with Pacific Opera in both Victoria and London: “Shannon Mercer’s Pamina is tender, guileless and, in her moments of anguish, deeply moving” (Victoria Times Colonist). Other recent opera roles include Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte with the Canadian Opera Company and her much-lauded French debut in the title role of Marin Marais’s Sémélé which was recorded as part of the renowned Hérve Niquet/Le Concert Spirituel trilogy of tragédie lyriques on Glossa: “Mercer’s Semele seduces” (BBC Music Magazine).
An avid concert and recital artist, recent engagements include performances at Carnegie Hall in New York for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Les Violons du Roy, Roy Thomson Hall with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah and concerts at the TSO’s Mozart@254 Festival, Luc Beausejour’s Clavecin en Concert, Generation Purcell in Houston with Mercury Baroque and Les Voix Baroques. She has also appeared in Handel’s Israël en Égypte with Les Violons du Roy in Montréal and Québec City, debuted at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in an all-Mozart recital featuring renowned American soprano Barbara Bonney, performed at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Shannon has performed in recital with Music Toronto for The Discovery Series, the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto, the Aldeburgh Connection at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. Shannon recalls her Welsh roots in a highly-popular program of traditional Welsh songs in new arrangements called Wales ~ Land of Song with Skye Consort which was recorded by Analekta in 2009.
CDs & DVDs
Shannon’s award-winning discography includes her new release, Salsa Baroque with Ensemble Caprice (Analekta) and the Prix Opus nominated O Viva Rosa (Analekta), one of the first recordings entirely devoted to Francesca Caccini which critics across the world have praised “a gorgeous performance” (Globe and Mail), “a wide range of colour, expression and subtly thrilling trills” (Gramophone), “impeccable craft, brilliant voice, affecting emotion and tasteful ornamentation” (Toronto Star), “one of the finest discs I have heard in a long while” (Musical Criticism). Shannon’s other recordings include Wales ~ The Land of Song, the 2009 JUNO Award-winning Gloria!: Vivaldi’s Angels, JUNO-nominated Bach and the Liturgical Year, Mondonville, English Fancy (Analekta) and Marin Marais’s Sémélé (Glossa).
As testament to her love of contemporary opera, Shannon can be heard in two of renowned Canadian composer Alexina Louie’s comic operas: in the DVD of Gemini-nominated Burnt Toast, an 8-vignette series directed by Larry Weinstein and as Minister Blais Grenier in Mulroney: The Opera which premiered in movie theatres across Canada in April 2011. A hit in movie theatres across Europe, Shannon also stars as Judith in the film version of Monty Python funny-man Eric Idle’s Not the Messiah, a role she debuted in the world premiere at Toronto’s 2007 Luminato Festival and at the Caramoor Festival and subsequently reprised in a US tour to Houston, Washington, and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl in the summer and at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall.
BACKGROUND
An alumnus of San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Opera Summer Program, Shannon began her operatic career as a member of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio Program. She has since gone on to perform on stages across North America and Europe. In July 2006 Shannon made her London debut under the auspices of the ROH Covent Garden in the highly praised production of The Midnight Court with Toronto’s Queen of Puddings Music Theatre.
A Career Development Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and winner of the 2004 Bernard Diamant Prize, allowed Shannon to spend an extended period of time in Vienna where she studied German operatic repertoire with renowned voice coach Margaret Singer. She also received the Virginia Parker Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto Career Development Award.
A native of Ottawa, Shannon Mercer now resides in Toronto.
