Armenian-American Soprano Ani Maldjian has been described as a "remarkable soprano", with a voice that is "richly mature and full of lyric nuance", and her singing "elegant, commanding, brilliant, fresh and strong…definitely a name to watch as she rises through the ranks of young sopranos."
This 2010-2011 season, Maldjian made her Irish and UK debut with Opera Theatre Company of Ireland in a national tour of the one-woman opera, The Diary of Anne Frank, which has brought her recognition and success all over America for the past four years. She later returned to Long Beach Opera as Dirce in Medea, made her debut with Opera in the Heights in Texas as Leila in The Pearl Fishers, and also made her debut with the Portland Chamber Orchestra in The Diary of Anne Frank. In the spring, she returned to Seattle Opera as Papagena in The Magic Flute, and is currently covering Isabel Bayrakdarian as the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen at the New York Philharmonic. Future engagements include a European tour of Anne Frank and a return to Seattle Opera.
Maldjian has performed over 30 major operatic roles including Clorinda, Nannetta, Lauretta, Leila, Cleopatra, Adele, Despina and her Armenian title roles as Zvart, Armine and Zemire, premiered in Los Angeles. With a great passion and enthusiasm for 20th and 21st century music, she has also performed the title roles in The Diary of Anne Frank and The Cunning Little Vixen with Long Beach Opera, Fire/Princess/Nightingale in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges with Seattle Opera's YAP, Princess (#1) in Susa's Transformations with the Merola Program, among others. She also created the role of Jane in the world premiere of Wet by Anne LeBaron at the Walt Disney Center in Los Angeles, with critical acclaim.
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts and a Master of Music degree from The California State University of Northridge. She received additional opera training at Seattle Opera's Young Artist Program (06-08), San Francisco Opera's Merola Program (06/07), Music Academy of the West (04/05), Aspen Music Festival (03), and OperaWorks (02).
She was the First Place Winner of the Western Region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2005.
She has worked with conductors such as Brian Garman, Gary Thor Wedow, Stephen Lord, Martin Katz, Gregory Vajda, Dean Williamson, Andreas Mitisek, Richard Buckley, Randall Behr, David Aks, Sara Jobin, Vatsche Barsoumian and Michael Morgan; directors such as Stephen Wadsworth, Peter Kazaras, David Gately, Jose Maria Condemi, Chas Rader-Shieber, Ed Berkeley, Joe Goode, and John Duykers; coaches such as Philip Kelsey, Marilyn Horne, Warren Jones, John Churchwell, Armen Guzelimian, Ann Baltz, Mark Morash, Maro Donabedian, Jay Rozendaal, and David McDade. Teachers include Sheri Greenawald, Deanna Murray, Paul Berkolds, Cyndia Sieden and Jane Eaglen.
In the non-operatic world, Ms. Maldjian enjoys working as a background vocalist with Serj Tankian's (System of a Down's lead singer) new label, Serjical Strike Records. She can be heard on Serj Tankian's recent solo album, "Elect the Dead" (Lie lie lie and Saving Us). "Lie lie lie" is now the theme song to the show "Fear Itself." She has also taken part of Saul Williams' last album "Talk to Strangers" and Buckethead's album "Enter the Chicken." All these can be found in all major record stores around the country. You can also read about the albums online or in various magazines such as "Rolling Stones". In recent articles, Tankian said, "An opera singer friend of mine Ani Maldjian did a couple of tracks, back-up tracks, with a beautiful operatic, giant, voice."
