Brett Umlauf

Praised by The New York Times for her “pealing, focused sound” and “luminous yet earthy” performances, Brett Umlauf recently was as a Fulbright fellow in Greece and Turkey, where she sang 9^th-century works of abbess-composer Kassia with Byzantine chant practitioners and lived with Orthodox nuns to imagine the rhythms of a medieval monastery. Umlauf’s multimedia exhibit KASSIA: Sound Icon opens in Istanbul next year in cooperation with the city’s Gender Museum. Additional work includes the Hazelnut Road: Vows of Stability, Acts of Mobility, Umlauf’s project about women religious composers and writers from Byzantium to 17^th-century Peru and contemporary Ethiopia to 1600s Milan and Mexico City, and the SUORE PROJECT with collaborators Kelly Savage and Anneke Schaul-Yoder, dedicated to transcribing and sharing compositions by nuns through the ages. Previously, Umlauf was a lead performer at Morningside Opera and Company XIV, a founding member of SIREN Baroque, and soloist at Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist in New York City. She has received grants from The Swedish Institute, the American Scandinavian Society, and the Swedish Women’s Educational Association.” Prior to performing Fleur in The Hunt, she was Peitho in Kate Soper’s Here Be Sirens.