American soprano Rachel Evangeline Barham, critically acclaimed for her "bell-clear soprano" (Ben Demers, DC Theatre Scene), is known for her musical intelligence and interpretation in repertoire ranging from song to stage. In addition to her specialty in Baroque music, Ms. Barham is a favorite of contemporary composers due to her vocal versatility and sensitivity to text. Premieres include Maurice Saylor's controversial and award-winning song set Laudis Corona (composed for her), and his 2009 opera Unfinished Sermons (a parable for church performance), as well as Andrew Earle Simpson's song cycle Seeds of Vengeance. Ms. Barham created the roles of Cassie in Simpson's opera The Outcasts of Poker Flat and Gloria and The Guardian's Sister in Saylor's operatic silent film score Teddy at the Throttle with the Snark Ensemble, as well as Sonia in the 2010 chamber opera Oblivion by Kyle Gullings, for which she was chosen as a 2010 Fringe Favorite artist by Joel Markowitz, writing for DC Theatre Scene. In 2009, she performed the role of Medea and others in the American concert premiere of opera selections by Mikis Theodorakis in New York City.
Ms. Barham has performed stage roles such as Olga in Lehár's The Merry Widow with the Washington Savoyards; First Spirit in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with Summer Opera Theatre Company; Attendant in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Opera Alterna; and Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare and Poppea in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at Catholic University, where she returned to co-direct Poppea in 2009. Concert and oratorio work includes Handel's Brockes Passion, Carissimi’s Jephte; Mozart's arrangement of Handel's Der Messias, Bach's "Lutheran" Mass in F Major, BWV 233, and Reinhard Keiser's St. Mark Passion with Cantate Chamber Singers; Haydn's Creation at American University; and solo appearances with the Great Noise Ensemble in Steve Reich's Tehillim, Armando Bayolo's Towards Golgotha, and Louis Andriessen's M is for Man, Music, Mozart (as a "non-classical soprano"); as well as numerous solo recitals.
Ms. Barham performed tributes for the 300th anniversary of Buxtehude's death at the 2007 American Guild of Organists' Mid-Atlantic regional convention in Baltimore and on the Westminster Presbyterian Organ Concert Series in Charlottesville, Virginia. She has also made solo appearances at the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian) and the 2011 Page to Stage Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Ms. Barham's 2011-2012 performance season includes several recitals in North Carolina, Hawai`i, and D.C.
