The vocal lines took on a hallucinatory power as sung by the silvery soprano Jessica Rivera.

—Chicago Tribune

Jessica Rivera: A Career in Music

Program

MOMPOU: Combat del Somni
STRAUSS: Das Rosenband, Opus 36, No. 1; Wiegenlied, Opus 41, No. 1; Ruhe, meine Seele, Opus 27, No. 1; Morgen! Opus 27, No. 4; Cäcilie, Opus 27, No. 2
BARBER: Hermit Songs, Opus 29
MUHLY: The Adulteress

Encore:
MORENO TORROBA: La Petenera

About This Performance

New San Francisco Performances artist-in-residence Jessica Rivera inspires composers and connects to audiences with her warmth, effortless stage presence and luminous voice. Her performances with the San Francisco and Berkeley Symphonies have made her a Bay Area favorite as well, infusing her singing with un-self-conscious depth and spirituality.

Artist Biography

Possessing a voice praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for its “effortless precision and tonal luster,” Jessica Rivera is established as one of the most creatively inspired vocal artists before the public today. The intelligence, dimension, and spirituality with which she infuses her performances on the great international concert and opera stages has garnered Rivera unique artistic collaborations with many of today’s most celebrated composers including John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, and Nico Muhly, and has brought her together in collaboration with such esteemed conductors as Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Rivera was heralded in the world premiere of John Adams’s newest opera, A Flowering Tree, singing the role of Kumudha, in a production directed by Peter Sellars as part of the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. Since then, she has performed A Flowering Tree for her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle and, under the composer’s baton, with the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre. The London performances were recorded and are now commercially available on the Nonesuch Records label.

Rivera made her European operatic debut as Kitty Oppenheimer in Peter Sellars’s acclaimed production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic with the Netherlands Opera, a role that also served for her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and she joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in a past season for its new production of Doctor Atomic under the direction of Alan Gilbert. She gave concert performances of Doctor Atomic with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and her portrayal of Kitty Oppenheimer was captured in Amsterdam and is commercially available on DVD on the BBC/Opus Arte label.

Performances of the 2010–11 season included Adams’s El Niño at the San Francisco Symphony and at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Golijov’s She Was Here with Roberto Minczuk and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Britten’s Spring Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst for a debut with the Cleveland Orchestra. Rivera covers the role of Pat Nixon for the Metropolitan Opera's company premiere of Nixon in China directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Adams, and joins the Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo for the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Hope: An Oratorio at the Kimmel Center with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia conducted by Minczuk. Carnegie Hall and Cal Performances Berkeley co-commission a work for Jessica Rivera written by Mark Grey to a libretto by Niloufar Talebi: Atash Sorushan (Fire Angels) which receives its premiere during recital presentations at Zankel Hall and Hertz Hall in collaboration with pianist Molly Morkoski and the MEME Chamber Ensemble.

San Francisco Performances welcomed Rivera as our artist-in-residence last season. She conducts workshops in classroom and community settings throughout the Bay Area encouraging young people to open their minds to the beauty and power of music as well as to the poetry and spirit behind the art of song.

Highlights of recent seasons include performances of El Niño with David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Nixon Tapes with the Pittsburgh Symphony under the direction of John Adams, Golijov’s Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra and Mahler's Fourth Symphony with the Phoenix Symphony and Michael Christie, Carmen, as Micaëla, with Bramwell Tovey and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Poulenc's Gloria with Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Tilson Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Ravel’s Shéhérazade with Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.

Rivera made her critically acclaimed Santa Fe Opera debut in the summer of 2005 as Nuria in the world premiere of the revised edition of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar. She reprised the role for the 2007 Grammy Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Robert Spano, and bowed in the Peter Sellars staging at Lincoln Center, Opera Boston, as well as in performances at the Barbican Centre, the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Cincinnati Opera, and the Ojai and Ravinia Festivals. The artist's first performances of Margarita Xirgu in Ainadamar, a role created by Dawn Upshaw, occurred in the summer of 2007 at the Colorado Music Festival under the baton of Michael Christie.

Committed to the art of recital, Rivera has performed in concert halls in New York, Los Angeles, and Santa Fe. In past seasons, to support a recital disc on the Urtext Records label that examines works for soprano, clarinet, and piano, Ms. Rivera toured North America with concerts in Los Angeles, New York (Carnegie Hall), Las Vegas,Oklahoma City, and Chicago (Ravinia Festival). She also has given a recital program at the Amelia Island Festival accompanied at the piano by Robert Spano. She was deeply honored to have received a commission from Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of a song cycle by Nico Muhly called The Adulteress given on the occasion of her Weill Hall recital performance.

Rivera has sung Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Musetta in La bohème with the Los Angeles Opera. As a member of the prestigious Los Angeles Opera Resident Artist Program for three seasons, she received critical acclaim from the New York Times for creating the role of Anastasia in the world premiere of Deborah Dratell's Nicholas and Alexandra.

Dr. Maryanne Kim, pianist and harpsichordist, is an active soloist and collaborative artist and has performed throughout the United States as well as in Canada, China and South Korea. In 2009, she made her Carnegie Hall debut with Jessica Rivera, soprano, where she premiered Nico Muhly's work, The Adultress. She regularly performed with Musica Angelica, a Los Angeles based early music ensemble group, in various chamber music and orchestral concerts on the harpsichord and organ. Ms. Kim was awarded "Performer of the Year" by the Beverly Hills Outlook, which described her playing as "perfectly translucent, altogether exceptional and her solo moment was a thrilling and unforgettable tour de force." In August of 2006, she premiered Ian Krouse's song cycle, Invocation, with Jessica Rivera in Los Angeles.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Maryanne Kim received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California Los Angeles, graduating valedictorian in the School of Arts and Architecture. She also received her Master of Arts degree from the University of Michigan in Vocal Accompanying and Chamber Music. In 2007, she received her DMA from the Thornton School of Music at University of Southern California in Keyboard Collaborative Arts where she received the Koldolfsky Scholarship and teaching assistantship. Her principal teachers include Alan Smith, Martin Katz and Ick Choo Moon.

Her teaching career includes her position at California State University of Bakersfield where she taught courses in theory, studio piano, accompanying and chamber music while taking an active part in the opera workshop as a coach/pianist. She has also worked as a coach and performed with Opera Idaho and as a staff pianist with San Francisco State University, Glendale City College and the Los Angeles Children's Chorus, among others. Dr. Kim currently resides in Henderson, Nevada with her husband and two sons, where she works as a freelance pianist and a teacher.

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