Anne Heath-Welch
Contact Information
Anne Heath-Welch
Voice
Phone: (936)294-3261
Office: Practice Room 39
E-mail: anneheathwelch@hotmail.com
Profile of Anne Heath-Welch
Anne Heath-Welch was born in Shreveport, LA and grew up in Shreveport and Houston primarily but for the last 21 years has been living and performing in Europe. Based in London, Anne was a company principal soprano for English National Opera in London, the UK’s second largest repertory opera company. She has also worked as a principal soprano for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera Zuid (Maastricht, Holland) among others. Some of the roles that she has performed are: Britten’s Governess (Turn of the Screw), Gluck’s Iphigenie (Iphigenie en Tauride); Verdi’s Lady Macbeth, Aida, Amelia (Ballo in Maschera), Leonora (Forza del Destino), Violetta (La Traviata), and Puccini’s Mimi (La Boheme), Madama Butterfly, Tosca ,Minnie (La Fanciulla del West), Manon (Manon Lescaut),Turandot, Georgetta (Il Tabarro), Beethoven’s Leonora (Fidelio), Dvorak’s Foreign Princess (Rusalka), Masagni’s Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Tchaikovsky’s Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Strauss’s Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos); Mozart’s Donna Elvira and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), First Lady (Die Zauberfloete), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Wagner’s Brangaene (Tristan und Isolde)as well as singing the roles of Sieglinde, Gutruene and a Rhinemaiden in a reduced version of the Ring with Pocket Opera of Nuernberg. She even has done some Gilbert & Sullivan, having sung the role of Josephine in H. M. S. Pinafore with the Beaumont Opera at the beginning of her career.
Anne attended Centenary College of Louisiana where she received her Bachelor of Music degree, majoring in vocal performance. She then studied with Willa Stewart and coached with David Garvey during her pursuit of her Masters of Music in vocal performance at the University of Texas at Austin. During this time she studied choral conducting with Chuck Smith and subsequently received her high school teaching certificate. Study with the renowned German coach/teacher Horst Gunter followed. After teaching at Sam Houston State University where she taught voice and was the music director of two musicals, as well as San Jacinto College and North Harris Community College, Anne returned to the University of Texas, enrolling in the DMA program in Vocal Performance, and studied with Elizabeth Mannion. During her doctoral studies, she taught voice at Southwestern University at Georgetown as well as being a Graduate Teaching Assistant at UT. Following her study with Elizabeth Mannion, Anne went to Vienna where she studied with David Lutz on his Lieder Course at the Conservatory of Music. From there she went to London to work with one of the finest singing teachers in the UK, Audrey Langford who also taught on the staff at the Santa Fe Festival. She also worked with two highly regarded acting teachers, Ande Anderson of the Royal Opera Covent Garden and Sheila Barlow (formerly of the Royal Shakespeare Company). Work with the renowned vocal coaches, Phillip Thomas and Tony Legge of English National Opera followed. Later while in Germany she also worked with Johanna Roeder of the Komische Oper Berlin. Anne speaks fluent German and has also worked with Italian diction coaches from the Royal Opera House and Welsh National Opera.
London and the UK offered many wonderful opportunities for performance – opera, oratorio and concerts - in some of the best venues: the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican, the Royal Opera House, the Coliseum (the St. Martin’s Lane home of English National Opera ) and the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. Anne has sung with the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra in concert and with the conductors Richard Hickox, David Atherton, Julian Smith, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Alexander Gibson, Jane Glover and Richard Armstrong. Oratorio has always been a joy and Anne has sung Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Shreveport) and Missa Solemnis (Guildford Cathedral), Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, the Mozart Requiem, Rossini’s Petit Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater (at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford), Janacek’s Glagolithic Mass and Stravinsky’s Les Noces for Bev Henson at SHSU.
Anne is a long standing member of NATS and joins the faculty at Sam Houston State for the second time now, teaching voice and German diction. She resides in Houston with her husband, Gottfried Schiller, formerly of the Komische Oper Berlin.