Critics and audiences alike have been “charmed” by soprano Brenna Wells and her varied performances of opera, oratorio, chamber music, and cabaret. She enjoys an active career in the United States and abroad, performing and recording with some of the greatest artists and ensembles of our day.

Ms. Wells received her undergraduate degree from Western Washington University and completed Master of Music in Vocal Performance at the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Anna Gabrieli. She went on to receive a Post-Graduate diploma with distinction from the prestigious Royal College of Music in London, where she studied with Elizabeth Robson and coached with soprano Emma Kirkby.

As an accomplished interpreter of Baroque music, Ms. Wells has performed with some of the world’s leading festivals, programs and conductors. In 2001, she was accepted into the Bach and Purcell program with Michael Chance at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England. Since then, she has performed under Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Festival, Stephen Stubb’s Accademia D’Amore for Early Opera in Seattle, Andrew Lawrence King and the Amherst Early Music Festival, and the Parley of Instruments’ "Handel in Italy" program, among others. Ms. Wells has been fortunate to perform as a frequent soloist with the Boston Early Music Festival, both in their Festival and Chamber opera productions and their Festival concerts. She premiered two Johann Mattheson pieces with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Stubbs and Paul O’Dette and performed and recorded the role of "Nymphe de L’Acheron" in the 2007, Grammy nominated BEMF production of Lully’s Psyche.

Ms. Wells has won numerous grants and awards including the Mary Levine Grant for Performing Artists, an Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Grant, an Astral Career Grant, the Patricia Sherman Award for Musical Excellence and an Honors Competition win from the Longy School of Music. She placed 1st in the 2004 New England Regional Finals of the NATSAA Competition and in 2005, she made her Carnegie Weill Hall debut after winning 1st Prize in the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition and she returned to Carnegie’s Zankel Hall performing under the baton of Ton Koopman as a young artist in the Weill Music Institute’s Handel workshop. In 2008, she was one of two singers chosen to perform in the Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars under the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Italy, where she studied with Barbara Schlick. She was recently honored with this fellowship again in 2009, returning to sing in the Fondazione Cini’s seminar of "John Dunstaple/English polyphony in 15th-century Italy" under the direction of Pedro Memelsdorff.

As an oratorio soloist, she has performed a wide range of repertoire with ensembles such as Musica Sacra, Chorus Pro Musica, Masterworks Chorale, Newton Symphony, Back Bay Chorale, Belmont Open Sings, Paul Madore Sings, Boston Secession, Handel Society of Dartmouth, Arcadia Players, Exsultemus, L’Academie, Marsh Chapel Choir and Collegium, Vox Consort, Apollo’s Fire, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. She can also be seen performing regularly as an ensemble member with Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, and Blue Heron Renaissance Choir.

Ms. Wells’ operatic credits include the Sandman in Hansel and Gretel, Frasquita in Carmen, Annina in La Traviata, Flora in Turn of the Screw, Dorinda in Orlando, Serpina in La Serva Padrona, La Poesie and La Paix in Les Arts Florissants, Galatea in Acis and Galatea, Venus in L’Europe Galante and lead role of the Christian Woman in Delvyn Case’s world premiere of The Prioress’s Tale.

An advocate of art song and contemporary works, she has had the fortune to perform in the Vermont Art Song Festival with Dalton Baldwin and Lorraine Nubar and in the Songfest Professional Program with Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Craig Smith and John Harbison. She has premiered many newly composed pieces, most recently being the "Bone Island Suite" for soprano and orchestra by composer and conductor Roupen Shakarian and the Philharmonia Northwest. As an interpreter of cabaret repertoire, she can be seen singing regularly with the Opera Boston Underground concert series where she recently performed the role of Anna II in their production of Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins.

During the 09-10 Season, Ms. Wells recorded and performed works from the Peterhouse partbooks with Blue Heron and recorded Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Charpentier’s Acteon with the Boston Early Music Festival. She also appeared as a soloist with L’academie, Ensemble Florilege, Cascata, First Music Concert Series in Nashua, NH, Long and Away Viol Consort, and in Handel's Messiah with the Providence Singers. She also performed as the Israelitish Woman in the Marsh Chapel Choir and Collegium’s production of Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, as well as the soprano soloist in their presentations of J.S. Bach’s Cantatas No.’s 70 and 39. This season, highlights include appearing as the First Witch in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Opera Series and her soloist debut with the Handel and & Haydn Society in Handel's Israel in Egypt, under the direction of Harry Christophers.

PRESS:

"The two sopranos, Teresa Wakim and Brenna Wells, provided a beautiful duet in 'The Lord is my strength and my song'; their voices wonderfully matched and blending exceptionally well."
- The Boston Musical Intelligencer (Back Bay Chorale's Israel in Egypt)

"Soprano Brenna Wells, mezzo-soprano Emily Marvosh, low tenor Michael Barrett, and high baritone Sumner Thompson all sang individually with clear voices, excellent diction, and dramatic expression."
- The Boston Musical Intelligencer (L'academie: (S)He's just not that into you: Love Songs)

"Bostonist was also rather charmed by Brenna Wells, who sang three times, and each piece was like a very small, tart pastry, gone in a couple bites. We've never been big on Prudence, but Wells' delivery of "As is it plenty" (W.H. Auden set to music by Benjamin Britten) nearly made us reconsider." - The Bostonist (Opera Boston, Opera Underground, "Seven Virtues" show)

"The opening "Sing Ye to the Lord," from Israel in Egypt, featured ethereal top notes from soloist Brenna Wells" - The Hub Review (Boston Secession, Handel in the Strand)

"The program also included star turns by Ms. Hargis, Marek Rzepka, Ms. Snaidas and Brenna Wells, the soloists in a Mattheson wedding serenade, 'Die Keushe Liebe.'" – The New York Times (BEMF Orchestra Concert)

"…high soprano Brenna Wells sang with admirable brightness” – The Boston Globe (BEMF Orchestra Concert)

"My ear was constantly beguiled: Brenna J. Wells, a delicate blonde sparrow, and Lawrence Jones, a willowy tenor became flowing silver (she) and gold (he) separately and together. Their physical slightness is deceiving: Ms. Wells performed her trills with unforced ease and demonstrated a few high notes in Dolby-like volume...it is to their credit that they sounded as fresh at the end of the evening as they did in the beginning." -- The Theatre Mirror (Acis and Galatea)

"The (Acis and Galatea) cast was excellent...soprano Brenna Wells (Galatea) sang neatly and affectingly" -- The Boston Globe (Acis and Galatea)

"The supporting cast was youthful, lively, engaging, and uncommonly persuasive: soprano Brenna Wells, mezzo Dianna Daly Betit, and, especially fine, tenor Charles Blandy and baritones Dana Whiteside and Philip Candilis…" -- The Boston Globe (La Traviata)