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The American soprano, voice teacher, and fitness instructor, Tonia D'Amelio, obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Musicology from Harvard University; and her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music/ She also has attended several training programs for opera and Baroque music in the USA and Europe.
Called “extravagantly charismatic” by the San Francisco Chronicle and praised by San Francisco Classical Voice for her “vivid and technically assured” singing, Tonia D'Amelio and maintains an active performing career in the Bay Area and beyond. She has sung with opera companies, orchestras, chamber ensembles, and vocal consorts across the USA and abroad. A versatile singer with a repertoire spanning five centuries, she particularly enjoys premiering opera and concert works. She created the role of Celia in Allen Shearer’s Middlemarch in Spring for the world premiere in San Francisco and the revival with Charlottesville Opera (February 2017), sang in the first performance of Ryan Brown’s Mortal Lessons at the Hot Air Festival, and joined the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys to premiere Ben Bachmann’s Fantasia on American Christmas Carols. She also performed featured roles in the modern stage premieres of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Le Temple de la Gloire (1745 version) with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, and Carlo Pallavicino’s Le Amazzoni nell’Isole Fortunate (1679) with Ars Minerva (May 2016).
Tonia D'Amelio has established a reputation as one of the most sought-after solo and ensemble singers in the Bay Area, appearing recently in the comic role of Drusilla in the West Edge Opera production of L’Incoronazione di Poppea, with the Los Angeles Baroque Players and at the William Byrd Festival in Portland, Oregon (February 2013). Other favorite opera and concert credits include The Queen of the Night in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Musetta in La Bohème, Donna Elvira in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni, Elisetta in Il matrimonio segreto, and soprano solos in W.A. Mozart's Mass in C minor, Felix Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. As a passionate advocate for sacred music in sacred spaces, she has been a soloist for liturgical performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, W.A. Mozart's Requiem, and J.S. Bach's St. John Passion (BWV 245), and has participated as a guest artist at the William Byrd Festival in Portland, Oregon, and at the Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy in Wiltshire, UK. Next season, she looks forward to her European debut in Jean-Marie LeClair’s Scylla et Glaucus at the Royal Opera of Versailles. She has been singing with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (Directors: Nicholas McGegan/Richard Egarr) as a soloist and choir member for the better part of two decades, as well as with American Bach Soloists (Director: Jeffrey Thomas).
Tonia D'Amelio teaches voice at her home studio in Oakland, as well as in private lessons and group coachings at the San Francisco Girls Chorus and Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco, where she also teaches classes on music theory and diction for singers. Since September 2018, she is Artist in Residence at Ruth Asawa SOTA Vocal Department. Outside of music, she teaches alignment-focused group fitness classes at at The Dailey Method's Piedmont and Berkeley studios. Drawing on her knowledge of anatomy and movement, her teaching incorporates various practices to energize and free the vocal instrument, including stretching, myofascial stimulation (self-massage), and yoga postures and breathing techniques. She believes that regardless of repertoire or style, singing is an expression of the singer’s entire body and state of being, and she encourages each student to grow through practicing artistic inquiry and self-compassion. |
