Kellie J. Van Horn
Mezzo-soprano

John Moriarity Encouragement Award, 2002

review

Mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn began 2006 with Sarasota Opera as Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus. This year marked her third season with Sarasota, where she has previously appeared as Lola (Cavalleria rusticana), Mallika (Lakmé), Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte), and Charlotte in several performances of Werther when an indisposed colleague was forced to cancel. Of her opening night performance, for which she jumped in mid-show, the St. Petersburg Times said, “Alertly responsive to the emotional arc of the text,…she did a superb job of saving what could have been a disaster, singing with accuracy and poise.” Last summer took Kellie back to Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she made her professional debut in 2002 as Anne Morrow Lindbergh in the world premiere of Cary John Franklin’s Loss of Eden. Of that portrayal the Financial Times of London applauded, “Kellie J. Van Horn explored the insecurities of Anne Morrow with physical dignity and vocal poise.” The Dallas Morning News also stated, “Mezzo Kellie J. Van Horn made Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s lines sound like music, and she effectively suggested her character’s conflicted dignity.” In 2005 she appeared in St. Louis as Lady Essex in Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana.

In 2004 Ms. Van Horn debuted with Opera Colorado as Flora Bervoix in La Traviata, and she also sang her first Carmen with Commonwealth Opera in Northampton, Massachusetts. “Van Horn wielded a classic Carmen voice, dark and sinuous, capable of impressive upper-level bloom, sharpened by an edge of danger and harboring a sense of contained fury,” said Springfield’s The Republican. “The Commonwealth Opera built a mostly successful performance…on mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn’s ability to smolder” (Daily Hampshire Gazette). Other performances include three appearances with Connecticut Grand Opera in Roméo et Juliette (Gertrude), La Traviata (Annina), and Faust (Siebel). Kellie was an apprentice singer with The Santa Fe Opera in 2000 and 2001 where she appeared on the mainstage as Cefisa in Ermione (Rossini) and the Dritte Magd in Elektra (Strauss).

Ms. Van Horn took first place in the 2001 Rosa Ponselle Foundation Scholarship Competition, and she was a finalist in the 2002 & 2003 George London Foundation Competitions. In 2003, having returned to her home state to compete, she was awarded second prize in the Southeast Region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Recently Kellie moved back to the east coast from Chicago, where she was awarded the Rose M. Grundman Award from the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation.

Kellie is a native of Augusta, GA, and received the Bachelor of Music degree from Shorter College in Rome, GA. She then went on to earn a Master of Music in Voice/Opera from the Yale University School of Music in 2001, where she studied with celebrated contralto Lili Chookasian. She trained at Salzburg’s esteemed Mozarteum in the summer of 1998 and returned to Europe the following year with the Shorter College Chorale to sing Brahms’ Alto Rhapsodie. During her graduate studies with Yale Opera, Ms. Van Horn sang such varied roles as Bianca – The Rape of Lucretia (Britten), Frugola – Il Tabarro (Puccini), Siebel – Faust (Gounod), and Ottavia - Il Coronazione di Poppea (Monteverdi).

On the concert stage Kellie appeared most recently with fellow Yale alumni in Milan, Italy, as the Old Lady in a concert performance of Berstein’s Candide as well as several concerts of various Broadway fare. In 2000 Kellie began a prosperous relationship with the Hartford Symphony, with whom she has sung Mozart’s Mass in C Minor as well as two productions of Handel’s Messiah. Throughout Connecticut Ms. Van Horn has expanded her concert repertoire with performances of Beethoven’s Mass in C, Haydn’s St. Nicolai Mass, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity, the Saint-Saëns Christmas Oratorio, both the Mass in B Minor and Magnificat of Bach, and Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle.

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