Soprano Dawn Bailey is a versatile artist, recognized for her engaging performances in a wide variety of vocal styles. Dawn is equally at ease on the concert and operatic stages, moving fluidly from chamber music to opera, oratorio, and art song. Especially sought after for her imaginative interpretations of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, she has appeared with some of Canada’s leading early music ensembles, including Tafelmusik, the Toronto Consort, Ensemble Caprice, The Toronto Masque Theatre, Les Violons du Roy, the Theatre of Early Music, and le Studio de musique ancienne de Montreal.
Dawn has premiered several new compositions by Canadian composers, notably singing the role of Elizabeth in Andrew Ager’s opera Frankenstein in Toronto in 2010. Other recent operatic roles include Artemia in Cavalli’s Artemisia in Boston, Flore in Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs in Seattle, and Filena in Cavalli’s Gli Amori di Apollo e Dafne in Toronto. Last season, Dawn was invited to tour a program of Spanish and Latin American Baroque music with Ensemble Caprice around the Montreal island. She also appeared as a soloist in Bach’s B Minor Mass in Halifax, Haydn’s Stabat Mater with the Cantata Singers of Ottawa, and Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion at the Church of Saint Andrew and Saint Paul in Montréal.
This year, Dawn looks forward to an exciting array of performances, both in Canada and abroad. Some highlights of the coming months include singing the roles of Zaide and Olimpia in André Campra’s L’Europe Galante in Montreal, Bach’s Saint John Passion in Halifax, performances of Salsa Baroque with Ensemble Caprice in Ontario and Quebec, and the release of a Celtic-Baroque fusion recording with harpist and harpsichordist Susan Toman.
Dawn appears on recordings with the Toronto Consort, Ensemble Caprice, the Theatre of Early Music, and Vivavoce. In the summer of 2010, Dawn was invited as one of three finalists to the Festival International de Musique Baroque de Lamèque in New Brunswick. There she was awarded second place and also the Prix du Publique, the audience favorite. In May of 2011 she was selected as one of six finalists in the 2011 Handel Singing Competition as part of the Classical Music Consort’s annual Handel Festival in Toronto, and in September of 2011 she traveled to France to compete in the final round of the Froville International Baroque Singing Competition.
Dawn has undertaken studies in music at the University of Alberta, the University of Toronto, the Conservatoire de musique de Montreal, McGill University, and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Her principal teachers and mentors include Suzie LeBlanc, Valérie Guillorit, Monica Whicher, Daniel Taylor, Aline Kutan, and Lorna MacDonald.
Besides her musical endeavors, Dawn is also passionate about vegetarian cuisine, gardening, and poetry. She is an avid practitioner of yoga and meditation, and since having obtained her yoga teaching certification in 2008, she teaches classes regularly in studios around Montreal, as well as offering private yoga instruction tailored especially toward singers.