Aurélie Franck

Born in Belgium, Aurélie Franck is both graduated in classical singing (Royal Conservatory) and in staging at the INSAS (Brussels) She has shown a strong interest in opera and made her first appearance in 2007 at the Academy of Ambronay in Le Carnaval et la Folie by A-C Destouches, directed by Hervé Niquet and on the stage of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. Afterwards she sang Mélisande in a staging of Vincent Boussard at the studio Opera in Ghent, Flore in Céphale et Procris by A-M Grétry at the Opéra de Versailles under the direction of Guy Van Waas, Nérine in La Provençale at the Opéra-Comique de Paris in April 2010 with the Troupe des Menus Plaisirs du Roy.

Aurélie Franck is holder of several prizes and awards like the "Extraordinary Prize Dedicated to a Young Singer" granted by Juan Oncina at the Viñas competition, the Wernaers Fund scholarship and the Yamaha scholarship, the Patrimony Scholarship and the scholarship of the Belgian Foundation of Vocation 2010 and has attended several Masterclasses with, among others, Olga Pasichnyk, Eytan Pessen, Matthias Rexroth, Prof. Gerd Uecker, Nathalie Stutzmann, Peter Kooij, Michel Verschaeve, Vincent Dumestre, Claire Lefilliâtre, Philippe Boesmans, David Jones, Graham Johnson, Jeffrey Francis and Christoph Prégardien.

Her meeting during her studies with the belgian composer Claude Ledoux was determinant and gave her the opportunity to create two of his vocal works, namely the Passio secundum Lucam executed in March 2008 in the Saint- Gudula Cathedral of Brussels, and the Notizen-Fragment with the organist Cindy Castillo, at the Kitara Concert Hall (Japan) as well as during the 2012 edition of the Ars Musica festivaland the 2016 edition of the Orgelkraft (Konserthus Stavanger). Their CD recording, « Fragments », containing also works of Jean-Pierre Deleuze, won the "Octave de la Musique" in 2015. Her skill in this repertoire enabled her to create the role of solo mezzo-soprano in the opera Paulus by Thomas Jennefelt in a coproduction with the Deutsches Theater of Berlin in September 2011 and the Mezzo 1 of James Woods Lamentations in Berlin and during the Festival for Sacred Music in Cuenca.

She was as well to hear in Kopernikus (Claude Vivier) in De Nederlandse Opera in April 2014, in the Grand Pianola Music of J. Adams with Asko/ Schoenberg Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw in Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam in May 2014 and in a production of The Photographer from Philip Glass in June 2014 with the Kammerensemble Neue Musik & Vocalconsort Berlin.

Her last important projects included the creation of the part of Mondfrau 1 (Zum Mond und zurück, opera by Andrew Norman) under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle in the Berliner Philharmonie and the solo voice in Hiérophanie from Claude Vivier with UNITEDBERLIN under the baguette of Vladimir Jurowski. In January 2019, the mezzosoprano took part to a creation in the Staatsoper Berlin (Violetter Schnee, Beat Furrer & Matthias Pintscher).

Aurélie especially likes to approach pants roles, for instance Nerone (L'Incoronazione di Poppea) at the Festival of Rheinsberg in 2011 or Ramiro (La Finta Giardiniera) in Berlin’s Bode-Museum (2016). Further highlights include the 1st Witch in Dido & Aeneas during

the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik 2013 (conductor : Piers Maxim, stage director : Laurence Dale), her solo debut in the Berliner Philharmonie under the direction of Iván Fischer in 2014 and the mezzosoprano solo of Duruflé's Requiem in the Konzerthaus Berlin in 2016.

With the Berlin-based renowned baroque ensemble Lautten Compagney, Aurélie played the part of Penelope in an adaptation of Il Ritorno d'Ulisse (C. Monteverdi) (Radialsystem, Theater Lübeck, Rheingau Musikfestival, Innsbrucker Festwochen der alten Musik...)

She also sang in December 2016 the Alto solo of the Weihnachtsoratorium (J-S Bach) with the same ensemble under the direction of Wolfgang Katschner and Euterpe in the serenata Parnasso in Festa (Händel Festspiele Halle 2018, staging of Sigrid T'Hooft).

As an ensemble singer, Aurélie has been able to participate to productions with ensembles like RIAS Kammerchor Berlin (2011-2013), Collegium Vocale Gent (2009-2015), ChorwerkRuhr, Vocalconsort Berlin, CAV&MA under the baton of world-famous conductors such as René Jacobs, Leonardo García Alarcón, Philippe Herreweghe, Kaspars Putniņš, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Andrea Marcon, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Ottavio Dantone, Kristjan Järvi, Matthias Pintscher... and to work with stage directors such as Barrie Kosky, Calixto Bieito and Peter Sellars.