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Marcia
Gronewold is a versatile artist
whose repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the avant-garde. Ms.
Gronewold has appeared as a soloist with organizations that include
San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, Berkeley Symphony, Oakland
Symphony, and the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic, working with
such esteemed conductors as Kent Nagano, Joanne Falletta, Stewart
Robertson, and William McGlaughlin.
Ms. Gronewold’s opera
credits include the West Coast premiere of Judith Weir’s King
Harald’s Saga, a work for unaccompanied soprano portraying
eight characters, with Marin Contemporary Opera. She has sung principal
roles with Berkeley Opera, Oakland Opera, Pocket Opera, and the
Opera Festival of the Sierra.
A founding member of two vocal
ensembles dedicated to contemporary music, Modus Novus and Ariel,
Ms. Gronewold has sung in premiere performances and recordings of
numerous works, and has been featured with Composers Inc., San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players, and the Kronos Quartet.
A graduate of San Francisco
Conservatory of Music who began studying music and theater at University
of Illinois, Ms. Gronewold also holds a degree in Interdisciplinary
Creative Arts from San Francisco State University and a Master of
Fine Arts in Music Performance and Literature from Mills College.
While at Mills College, she
studied in London with soprano Jane Manning, and subsequently received
a scholarship to attend West Dean College in Sussex, where she continued
her work with Ms. Manning and with the composers Anthony Payne and
Judith Weir. Ms. Gronewold's 2000 master's thesis and recital
focused on the use of Sprechstimme in the compositions
of British composer Alison Bauld. Other important influences
in Ms. Gronewold's singing have included teachers Jane Randolph,
Dickson Titus, and Dame Donna Peterson. She has studied repertoire
with John Wustman, James Meredith, Blanche Thebom, and at Gunther
Schuller's Festival at Sandpoint with Louis Krasner. |
“Boulez’s
‘Le Marteau sans maître’ found the mezzo-soprano
of Marcia Gronewold nicely complemented by the exotic instrumentation
of flute, guitar, percussion…Gronewold hit on a degree of
sensuality and improvisational flow that were a bracing contrast
to the work’s rhythmic sameness and tempo shifts. Altogether,
this was an affecting performance.”
—
Marilyn Tucker, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
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“Marcia
Gronewold’s concert at Mills College, titled ‘The Music
in the Words,’ began with Luciano Berio’s 1966 tour
de force ‘Sequenza III’…Gronewold not only followed
his instructions to the letter—including walking onstage muttering
to herself—but she did so with conviction and a terrific sense
of spontaneity…While every piece on her program involved some
kind of theatricality, three Shakespeare settings by Australian
composer Alison Bauld required Gronewold to be as much actress as
vocalist. In ‘Banquo’s Buried,’ Bauld’s
setting of Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene, Gronewold achieved
a spine-tingling mixture of madness and steely control…Gronewold
would obviously be as formidable on a theater stage as in the concert
hall. (Pianist Jonas Muller) joined Gronewold for a dazzling performance
of George Crumb’s ‘The Sleeper.’ Closing her mouth
for the quiet hum that concludes this piece was a perfect ending
for Gronewold’s concert.”
—
Sarah Cahill, BERKELEY EXPRESS |
