Joyce DiDonato

In all her endeavors, both on and off the stage, Joyce DiDonato engages audiences through her energy, imagination, and commitment to her art form. Through these qualities, and with a constantly questing spirit, she has nurtured the vocal, musical and dramatic talents that have taken her to the pinnacle of her profession as a performer. Equally, they serve her as an eloquent and formidable advocate for the transformative power of the arts as she takes music far beyond the world’s great stages – to educational institutions, refugee camps, and maximum-security prisons. “Music heals,” she has said, “and it can fire people up with purpose and courage to change the world.” The winner of multiple Grammys and the 2018 Olivier Award, Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato is, in the words of the New Yorker, “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation”, her voice having been described by The Times as “nothing less than 24-carat gold”. For all its beauty and agility, its true impact lies in Joyce’s capacity to illuminate character and meaning through nuances of colour and phrasing and her unfailingly communicative way with the text.

Birthday: February 13, 1969