ADA Artist Management & Representation

Biography

“As the indispensable Despina, Soprano Jennifer Aylmer steals every scene she’s in, especially when Despina is passing herself off as a doctor or lawyer. Ms. Aylmer has terrific comic chops and a voice to match. It’s hard to imagine this role being done better” (as Despina in Cosi fan tutte with Opera Theater of St. Louis)

American soprano Jennifer Aylmer has developed a sterling reputation for her beautiful voice, compelling stage portrayals, and impeccable musicianship. The New York Times has hailed her for her, “awesome accuracy,” while The Chicago Sun-Times has recommended that listeners, “bask in the aural delight of Aylmer’s dazzling shifts from regal command to cool insouciance and fatally attractive seduction.” This season also marks her directorial debut with Stony Brook State University.  Recent engagements include a return to Portland Opera as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, performances of Despina in Cosí fan tutte for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, in addition to  concerts with the Haydn Orchestra and Kansas City Symphony.  She will be making her Dallas Opera debut in 2014.

Recently, Jennifer made her debut singing Monica in The Medium with Spoleto Festival USA. Ms Aylmer also returned by popular demand to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, with Baritone Randall Scarlata, and Pianist Laura Ward in their Tin Pan Alley concert, and repeated the program again in the fall of 2010.

Ms. Aylmer was recently seen in the title role of Rodelinda with Portland Opera, as Martha in the new opera John Brown with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, as Hannah in Opera New Jersey’s The Merry Widow, and as Gretel in Hansel und Gretel for her Atlanta Opera debut, which she also covered for the Metropolitan Opera.  Concert engagements included appearances with Lyric Fest!, the Sarasota Performing Arts series,  Sing for Hope, SEFoS’ “The Great Escape”, and NYFOS’ “No Song is Safe from Us” concert. The 2009-2010 season saw Ms. Aylmer returning to the Metropolitan Opera to cover the roles of Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mme. Pdtochina’s Daughter in The Nose, singing An American Songbook concert with Lyric Fest concert series, and returning to the Alabama Symphony for Mozart’s Requiem.  Engagements for the 2008-2009 season included the title role in Semele with Florentine Opera, Kathie in The Student Prince with Nashville Opera, Mařenka in The Bartered Bride with Opera Boston, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at the Green Mountain Festival.   In the 2006-2007 season Ms. Aylmer returned to both New York City Opera as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel and the Metropolitan Opera as Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, sang Rosasharn in The Grapes of Wrath at Utah Opera, and debuted with both the Phoenix Symphony as Gretel and with San Diego Symphony in Mozart’s Exultate, Jubilate, Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.

Ms. Aylmer made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in the 2005-2006 season as Bella in the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy.  Other highlights in the opera arena include leading roles in Handel’s Orlando, Don Pasquale, Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro, Der Rosenkavalier, Handel’s Flavio, Street Scene, Falstaff, and The Turn of the Screw with such companies as New York City Opera, Minnesota Opera, Orlando Opera, Utah Opera, the Aspen Festival, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Kentucky Opera, and Berkshire Opera.  With Austin Lyric Opera she has performed both Gilda in Rigoletto and Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. As a member of the Houston Grand Opera studio she created the role of Amy in the world premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women.

Equally accomplished in oratorio, concert, and an especially sought-after recitalist Ms. Aylmer has been a featured soloist with the Haydn Orchestra in Balzano, Italy, National Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, and the Beijing Music Festival.  She sang Eurydice in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall, opposite Ewa Podles, and during the summer of 2005 made her San Francisco debut singing Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles with Michael Tilson Thomas.  Additional concert highlights include Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Fauré’s Requiem. Ms. Aylmer made her New York recital debut as the 2001 recipient of the Alice Tully Hall Vocal Arts Debut Recital from the Juilliard School and has been presented across the country by the Marilyn Horne Foundation.  A native of Long Island Ms. Aylmer is a graduate of Eastman School of Music and alumnus of the Julliard Opera Center. Her many honors and awards include a Career Grant from the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation, the Richard F. Gold Career Grant, the National Society of Arts and Letters and the Catherine Filene Shouse Career Grant from the Wolf Trap Opera Company.

She has also received notable prizes from the Palm Beach Opera Competition, Opera Index, and the Oratorio Society of New York Competition.