Johannette Zomer

The Dutch soprano Johannette Zomer began her studies at the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam in 1990 with Charles van Tassel, after having worked as a microbiology analyst for several years. In June 1997 she was awarded her Performance Diploma. Since then she has received coaching by Diane Forlano (London), Claudia Visca (Wuppertal) and Marlena Malas (New York).

Her repertoire ranges from medieval music through all music of the baroque and classical eras, including opera, but also Lieder, French Romanticism and Contemporary music.

Johannette’s concert appearances are also many and various. She has worked with Baroque specialists such as Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman, Frans Brüggen, Gustav Leonhardt, René Jacobs, Reinard Goebel, Ivor Bolton, Thomas Hengelbrock and Paul McCreesh, but has also worked with conductors including Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding, Ivan Fisher, Marcus Creed, and Valery Gergiev.

She regularly gives recitals accompanied by theorbo player Fred Jacobs or fortepiano specialist Arthur Schoonderwoerd.

Johannette made her opera debut as Tebaldo in Verdi’s Don Carlo with the Nationale Reisopera in October 1996. Since then she has made regular appearances in roles including Belinda, Pamina, La Musica, Euridice, Dalinda and Ilia, and also as Amanda in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre and Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
Regularly she contributes to CD-recording projects. A few of her most recent releases – all very well received in both press and radio – are the Bach Cantatas disc with the English ensemble Florilegium for which she won an Edison Award the cd With Endless Teares with theorbist Fred Jacobs, showing the development of English 17th Century Song –one of the top choices of 2009 on CD Review BBC-, and the cd Love & Madness, a disc with Händel aria’s together with Bart Schneemann, oboe (all on Channel Classics).

In 2013 she founded her own ensemble the Tulipa Consort. She has performed with this new ensemble at the Göttinger Handel Festspiele, and in Amsterdam with Dutch oboist Bart Schneemann.