“… Karina Gauvin is the incarnation of a Cleopatra through songs with haunting modulations… This Queen of Egypt who expresses her delicately shaded laments on the borders of silence…” – Diapason, January 2012.
Recognized for her work in the baroque repertoire, Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin sings Bach, Mahler, Britten and the music of the 20th and 21st centuries with equal success. The prestigious distinctions she has received include the title of “Soloist of the Year” awarded by the Communauté internationale des radios publiques de langue française, first prize in the CBC Radio competition for young performers, and the Virginia Parker Prize and Maggie Teyte Memorial Prize in London.

She has sung with the greatest symphony orchestras, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, as well as baroque orchestras such as Les Talens Lyriques, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Accademia Bizantina, Il Complesso Barocco, the Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and Les Violons du Roy.

She has performed under the direction of Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, Bernard Labadie, Christophe Rousset, Alan Curtis, Sir Roger Norrington, Kent Nagano, Semyon Bychkov, Hulmut Rilling and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In addition, she has given recitals with pianists Marc-André Hamelin, Angela Hewitt, Michael McMahon, and Roger Vignoles.

Among her recent projects was a European tour and an Erato recording of Niobe (Steffani) with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. She also sang Correspondances and Le Temps l’horloge (Dutilleux) with the Orchestre national de Bordeaux under the direction of Hans Graf. In spring 2015, she sang the role of Venus in the critically acclaimed production of Rameau’s Dardanus under the direction of Raphaël Pichon and Michel Fau. She has just finished recording Handel’s Partenope, again in a duo with Philippe Jaroussky, with Riccardo Minasi’s Il Pomo d’Oro ensemble, and she will start a European tour with them in January 2016.

In 2015, we heard her in the role of Vitellia in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris (J. Rohrer/D. Podalydès), and in the role of Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo (O. Dantone/R. Carsen) at the Glyndebourne Festival. In the previous year, she sang Armide in Gluck’s Armide (I. Bolton/B. Kosky) at the Nederlands Opera, and Giunone in Cavalli’s La Callisto at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The coming seasons will be fascinating: she will sing the role of Alcina at the Teatro Real in Madrid (C. Moulds/D. Alden), Lia in Claude Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue with the Radio France Philarmonic Orchestra, and in Elijah with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki.

She was Alcina (Handel) with Les Talens Lyriques and Ariadne in Georg Conradi’s Die Schöne und getreue Ariadne for the Boston Early Music Festival. She has sung Seleuce in Handel’s Tolomeo with Alan Curtis, with whom she also recorded Handel operas on ARCHIV/Deutsche Grammophon, Virgin and Naïve labels, among others. She performed in Tito Manlio (Vivaldi) in Brussels and at the Barbican in London, in Ezio (Handel) in Paris and Vienna, in Giulio Cesare (Handel) in Paris and Vienna, as well as in Juditha Triumphans (Vivaldi) with Andrea Marcon at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Her performances with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra earned her nominations at the Grammy Awards in 2007 and 2009.

Karina Gauvin’s extensive discography – over 40 titles – has won numerous awards, including a “Chamber Music America Award” for her Fête Galante disc with pianist Marc-André Hamelin, and several Opus Prizes.