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Patrice Burgstahler



Biography

Ms. Burgstahler's credentials include a Bachelor's Degree of Music in Vocal Performance from University of Colorado at Boulder and a Master's Degree of Music in Vocal Performance at Boston Conservatory of Music under renowned opera conductor, John Moriarty.

She was the Rocky Mountain Regional winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions competing in the New York City semi-finals, a Regional San Francisco Opera Auditions winner and won both district and regional CO/WY NATS; National Association of Teachers of Singing undergraduate women's division 1st place winner.  She has received grants from Palm Springs Opera Guild, the Denver Lyric Opera Guild, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council.

She has appeared with Boston Opera, Denver Opera, and the New Jersey Opera, singing the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor,  Musetta in La Bohème, Madame Herz in Der Schaupieldirektor (The Impressario), and Queen of the Night in Der Zaubeflöte (The Magic Flute).  Among other performances, Ms. Burgstahler has sung Madame Latour in Le Postillon de Longjemeau in New York, Valencienne in The Merry Widow with the Denver Opera Company, and Adina in L'Elixir D'amore (The Elixir of Love) and Gilda in Rigoletto with New Jersey Opera.

She has sung concert tours worldwide in Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the Scandinavian countries, as well as Russia, Poland and the former Yugoslavia, making her European concert debut in Austria's Grazer Dom in Franz Schubert's Mass in B-Minor with the Grazer Symfonia launching her international career.     Worldwide, she has performed as soprano soloist in Arthur Honneger's King David, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and numerous other oratorio works.   As well as recital and concert dates in New York, Boston, and Denver, Ms. Burgstahler is currently making symphony appearances in the USA.

She performed the role of Carlotta in Andrew Lloyd Webber's German production of Phantom of the Opera from 1991-2001 in Hamburg, Germany singing multiple performances in German at Hamburg's Neue Flora Theatre 3000 seat auditorium; hired from over 800 auditionees in New York City auditions (she got the job).

Ms. Burgstahler has recorded a CD on the SYRINX label, which includes the only recording of Villancescas by Colorado composer, Jean Berger's Spanish song cycle for soprano and chamber orchestra.  Ms. Burgstahler has an extensive and impressive performing history in art song literature singing numerous recitals both nationally and internationally in classical styles from Baroque to Contemporary.  She has sung recitals featuring American, British, French, German and Spanish composers in Hamburg's concert halls, at the American consulate several times and British consulate during the Shakespeare Prize winner's concert with Ian McEwan and his initial reading of Atonement in 2001.
She was based in Hamburg, Germany of 1991 to 2001, when she returned to the United States serving as an Assistant Professor of Voice
at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma until 2005.

Currently completing her Doctorate of Arts in Vocal Performance with a secondary emphasis in Opera Direction at the University of Northern Colorado, Ms. Burgstahler is writing her dissertation on the 19th-century Bel Canto heroines and their "mad scenes" from a mental medical viewpoint and anticipates finishing in May 2009.   Ms. Burgstahler was one of five vocalists accepted each summer into Columbia University's Teachers College, Doctoral Cohort Program for vocal pedagogy at the college level, and spent the summer of 2006 in NYC working on her doctorate.