Désirée Till (soprano)

Born in Zurich, the Dutch-Canadian soprano Désirée Till grew up in Switzerland where she also studied singing and graduated (B.MUS) at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Bern, Switzerland.

Further studies led her to the Zurich Opera and her operatic debut as Olga in Léhar’s Merry Widow conducted by Franz Welser - Möst in a staging by Helmut Lohner (Vienna).
Her engagements led her to different theatres in Switzerland where she performed many roles such as Valencienne (The Merry Widow), Arsena and Saffi (The Gypsy Baron), Annina (A night in Venice), Rosalinda and Adele (Fledermaus), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte) and Eurydice (Orpheus in the Underworld).
Significant influences for her work on stage have been: Martin Markun (Schweizerisches Opernstudio, Switzerland), Georges Delnon (Staatsoper Mainz, Germany) and Sarah Ventura (Opera de Chambre from Geneva, Switzerland).

She interpreted contemporary songs specially written for the trio AMALTEA at the Swiss Radio station DRS2. She also sang many concerts with musicians from the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL) at the museum of the International Red Cross in Geneva (Musique et Vie) and different concerts to benefit UNICEF and the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Society with Marie-Cécile Bertheau (Opéra Lausanne/Switzerland).

In 2008 she sang Adele (Fledermaus) in a production from the atelier d’opéra at the Université de Montréal with Jean-François Rivest. Also in 2008, Désirée Till performed for the first time at the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival’s Ariadne auf Naxos the role of Zerbinetta with Agnes Grossmann who also invited her to sing at galas and the Classic Radio 96.3FMToronto.
She completed her masters in Music Interpretation at the Université de Montréal in Canada in 2009. In 2010 Désirée Till created with Coenraad Bloemendal (Cello) and Erica Goodman (harp) the exciting new Trio Désirée. Three Canadian composers (Don Thompson, Alexander Rapoport and Abigail Richardson-Schulte) have already written works for Trio Désirée, and more are being commissioned. In summer 2010 the trio performed at several festivals in Ontario and Quebec including the prestigious Canadian Festival of the Sound. Désirée Till sang with her trio Désirée at the Serenata Music Concerts in London (ON) where some new pieces written exclusively by Don Thompson for the Trio Désirée have been performed in public for the first time.
Another exciting concert was the semi-staged operetta with famous melodies from the different operettas, transcribed especially for Trio Désirée at the Muskoka Opera Festival in 2012. She was invited last year again to the Festival to sing the role of Manon.

In 2014 Trio Désirée made the opening of the Muskoka Opera Festival with the 'Fledermaus' by Johann Strauss. Transcription has been made for the trio by John Rea, Chris Goddard and Avalon Rusk. Together with three other singers (Marianne Lambert as Adele, Julien Horbatuk as Gabriel von Eisenstein and Eric Thériault as Alfred), Désirée Till sang the role of Rosalinde and staged and produced the Fledermaus new for Trio Désirée, a Canadian adaptation of the Fledermaus by Johann Strauss.

Désirée Till recorded her first CD, mastered and mixed by Lorne Tulk, with Erica Goodman at the harp and Coenraad Bloemendal at the cello; the CD spotlights melodies by Duparc, Fauré, Damase and some songs by the early Debussy and has been released on ERDECOrecordings label in 2013. ‘Emotions’ is her first CD with organist Jacques Boucher.
A new program which combines the organ, played by Jacques Boucher, the violin, played by Anne Robert from Trio Hochelaga and Trio Désirée with Coenraad Bloemendal (Cello) and Erica Goodman (harp) will be part of an upcoming tour through Canada in 2018: the Quintet Désirée.