Originally from Washington State, soprano Brenna Wells is quickly establishing herself as a singer in demand. After completing her Bachelor's Degree in vocal performance at Western Washington University, she won 2nd prize in the Seattle Civic Opera Competition and performed as a soloist in the opening week festivities for the Seattle Symphony's new Benaroya Hall. She received her Masters Degree with distinction from the Longy School of Music where she studied with Anna Gabrieli and has since gone on to perform as the soprano soloist with many Boston-area chamber and choral ensembles including Musica Sacra, the Masterworks Chorale, Chorus Pro Musica, Chagall String Quartet, Longitude New Music Ensemble, Belmont Open Sings, Paul Madore Sings, Marsh Chapel Choir, Longy Chamber Choir, Harvard Dunster House and Lowell House Opera and the Harvard Chapel Series. She is also an ensemble member with Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society.

Miss Wells' operatic roles range from Handel, Charpentier, and Mozart to Verdi, Britten and Humperdink and she finds herself equally at home with recital, contemporary, oratorio repertoire. In 2001, she received the Mary Levine Grant for Performing Artists to fund her participation in the Bach and Purcell program with Michael Chance at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England. Since then, she has performed as a soloist under some of the greatest early music specialists and sung in many renowned festivals and programs across the U.S. and Europe including Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Festival, Stephen Stubb’s Accademia D’Amore for Early Opera in Seattle, and the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenov, premiering two Johann Mattheson pieces with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Stubbs and Paul O’Dette. She appeared as "Venus" in Campra's L'Europe Galante at the Amherst Early Music Festival under the direction of Andrew Lawrence King and stage director, Drew Minter and has sung with such acclaimed groups as Apollo’s Fire, La Donna Musicale, Vox Consort, Seraphic Fire and in June of 2005, Miss Wells made her Carnegie Weill Hall debut with harpsichordist Leslie Kwan (Duo Bella) after winning 1st Prize in the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition. She returned to Carnegie Hall in 2008, performing under the baton of Ton Koopman as a young artist in the Weill Music Institute’s Handel workshop.

Miss Wells received a post-graduate diploma with distinction from the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied with Elizabeth Robson and coached with soprano Emma Kirkby. Shortly thereafter, she placed 1st in the 2004 New England Regional Finals of the NATSAA Competition and went on to the National Semi-Finals. An advocate of art song and contemporary works, Miss Wells 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 including, most recently, the "Bone Island Suite" for soprano and orchestra by composer and conductor Roupen Shakarian and the Philharmonia Northwest. Last season she was a soloist with various Boston ensembles including La Donna Musicale, Mount Holyoke Chorale, and was a featured singer with the Opera Boston "Opera Underground" outreach series as well as a season ensemble member. In 2007 she performed and recorded the role of "Nymphe de l’Acheron" in the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Lully’s Psyche and made her BEMF Fringe debut with The Sun's Darlings - an ensemble formed by herself and sopranos Lydia Brotherton, Teresa Wakim and harpsichordist, Leslie Kwan. She also performed in the BBC Proms Music Festival in London with the Handel and Haydn Society, under Sir Roger Norrington and followed that with the Cambridge Music Schools' "Baroque – Handel in Italy" course in Cambridge, England, where she was a soloist under the direction of the Parley of Instruments, Peter Holman, and Philip Thorby. Operatic performances from the 07-08 season include the Sandman" in Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel, "La Poesie" and "La Paix" in Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants, and lead role of the "Christian Woman" in Delvyn Case’s world premiere of The Prioress’s Tale, which she will reprise for a touring production in the 2008-2009 season. She was recently selected as a grant recipient for the Anna Sosenko Artist Assist Trust and 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 this past May. This season Miss Wells can be heard live, weekly on WBUR as a Marsh Chapel Choir soloist and choral scholar and looks forward to performing with Blue Heron, The Sun's Darlings, The Boston Early Music Festival, Back Bay Chorale, L'Academie, Boston Secession, the Sun's Darlings, and other ensembles.

PRESS:

"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)