Jury President – Voice 2025
The Jury President of the Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM) plays an important artistic role within the organization. From the preparation of the competition to the announcement of the results, she acts as a coordinator and supervisor of the jury, presiding over the deliberations and decision-making with fairness and equity. She also acts as principal advisor to the CMIM’s Artistic Director, helping to guide and prepare the competition.
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Internationally acclaimed for her interpretations of Wagner, Strauss, Verdi and Puccini, Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka has enjoyed a career spanning 35 years.
After completing her studies at the University of Western Ontario and University of Toronto, she won First Prize at the ’s-Hertogenbosch Voice Competition in the Netherlands as well as First Prize at the Mady Mesplé Competition in France, both in 1988.
Pieczonka began her operatic career at the Vienna Volksoper in 1989, and in 1991 she joined the Vienna State Opera, where she sang a wide repertoire from Mozart to Wagner for three decades. She has sung leading roles at the world’s most prestigious opera houses, including La Scala, Maggio Musicale Florence, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opéra de la Bastille, Bavarian State Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Liceu Opera Barcelona, The Metropolitan Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, New National Theater Tokyo, among many others. Her signature roles include Tosca, The Marschallin, Chrysothemis, Ariadne, Arabella, Senta, Sieglinde, Amelia (Un ballo in Maschera) and Elisabetta (Don Carlo).
Adrianne Pieczonka has also performed at the Bayreuth Festival, singing Sieglinde in Die Walküre in and Senta in The Flying Dutchman. She has appeared numerous times at the Salzburg Festival (Der Rosenkavalier, Don Carlo, and Fidelio) and at the Glyndebourne Festival (Don Giovanni and Arabella). She made her debut at the Festival d’Aix en Provence in 2013, singing Chrysothemis in Elektra, directed by Patrice Chereau.
Adrianne has performed with conductors including Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Colin Davis, Riccardo Muti, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Christian Thielemann, Franz Welser Möst, Kent Nagano, Kirill Petrenko, Andris Nelsons, Esa Pekka Salonen, among many others. She has performed internationally on numerous concert and recital stages, most recently singing Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the OSM under Alexander Shelley and in recital at the Festival Lanaudière with Michael McMahon. She recently performed Schubert’s Winterreise in recital in Madrid and Toronto.
Her most recent recording, Lyrical Echoes, was released on the Analekta Label in 2021 and features Lieder by Clara Schumann with by pianist Liz Upchurch. Previously, her album of Puccini Arias won a Juno Award in 2010.
Adrianne was named Kammesängerin by the Vienna State Opera in 2007 and was named Officer of the Order of Canada in 2008. In 2009 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory in 2013. Adrianne holds Honorary Doctorates from The University of McMaster and The University of Western Ontario.
In 2019, Adrianne was appointed Chair in Voice at the Glenn Gould School, Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She is active as a masterclass visitor at many universities and voice programs and often works with young professional singers in Young Artist Programs, most recently at the Vienna State Opera and the Canadian Opera Company. She served on the International Jury for the Voice 2022 edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal.
