Photo by Maiyim Baron
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JANNA WACHTER is a singer, actress, composer, writer, puppeteer and performance artist who works in a wide range of media.
Janna has sung in countless, unusual situations: buses, bridges, barges, with or without various strange instrumentation: bass drum, glass harmonica, thunder drum, slinky, found objects, as well as Stromboli's active volcano... In film Matthew Brown featured Janna in his short, "A Mother's Song", “Aphids” which was shown in NWFF Local Sightings Film Festival and a music video shown On Demand, “There is a Wind.” Curtis Taylor used Janna in his film trilogy where she performed the role of Sally in Barber's chamber opera“A Hand of Bridge” and in the second film she portrayed the owner of a burlesque hall in “Pink Slips.” In Europe, Janna, performing in Germany, premiered an experimental work with Kain Karawahn in Oberhausen at the 'The Dragon Awakes' festival. Featured guest artist in 'Volcanism In The Arts', a festival in Stromboli, Italy, Janna gave a one woman show combining opera and blues and returned again the next year to give an operatic puppet show. Janna has also given performances at the Ungarn exhibit of the 2000 World Expo in Hannover, the top of the Stromboli Volcano in Italy and multiple churches and piazzas in Western Europe. Here in Seattle, Janna was the "Point and Shoot Singer" for the lofi Arts Festival 2014, forest creature and mussel shell transformation as well. "Don't Assume I Cook" was the title of her production in the 2011 series of Live at the Film Forum at the Northwest Film Forum which Janna produced and starred in. For four years Janna produced and sang in a chamber music ensemble called "Splash!" programing a wide variety of music encompassing contemporary, cowboy, modern, romantic and gospel music, original compositions by the group and multi media performances . The Emerald City Imporv group has used Janna at Bumbershoot. Using other genres and her own compositions, she has appeared at the The Frye Art Museum, the Arts West Music Series, The Seattle Fringe Festival ('The Invention of the Funeral' featuring the 'Laughing Crying' aria) and was main soloist in the New Prometheans International Fire Festival. Contemporary Russian composer and concert pianist, Ivan Sokolov, premiered his songs in Seattle with Janna. In the operatic field, she has sung with companies such as; Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, the Aspen Music Festival, Opera Northwest, Lake Chelan Bach Feste , Kitsap Opera and Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony. She has sung the roles of Carmen, Cherubino, Hansel, Suzuki, among others including two housekeepers; Bertha from 'The Barber of Seville' and Mrs. Grose from 'The Turn of the Screw' (That is one scary opera!). Janna's most notable award was the San Francisco Opera Study Award. She performed Mahler's Kindertotentlieder with the Thalia Symphony and was first alto soloist in Mahler's 8th Symphony with the Northwest Mahler Festival under the baton of Geoffrey Simon at Benaroya Hall. |