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Shudong Braamse, soprano
International performer and coloratura soprano, Shudong Braamse, has appeared on stages in Canada, Italy, Austria, Finland, Estonia, Spain, Latvia, Singapore, Taiwan and China. She has performed as Lucy in The Telephone, Sally in Thomas and Sally, and Josephine in H.M.S. Pina-fore. As a recitalist, she has premiered several works by Asian and American composers, in-cluding Huaihua’s I Wish I Were a Little Light Boat, Dr. Gary Nash’s song cycle - Peace, Love and Prosperity, and Michael Bulychev-Okser’s Spanish art song Romance de la Luna. Critic Carol Cohan of Orlando’s The Villages Daily Sun praised Dr. Braamse’s powerful upper regis-ter and described her technique as fluid and true, flowing from top to bottom effortlessly. Dr. Braamse has been invited to judge the George Gershwin International Music Competition in NYC. She was a guest artist and faculty member at the Alion Baltic International Music Festi-val in Tallinn, Estonia. Currently she is an artist and faculty teaching at the InterHarmony In-ternational Music Festival in Acqui Terme, Italy since the summer of 2019.
Shudong has a passion for sharing the traditions of Western vocal music with her native China and sharing developments in Chinese concert music with audiences and students in America. She has given numerous concerts and master classes in China. The books she translated – Complete Preparation: A Guide to Auditioning for Opera by Joan Dornemann and Basics of Vocal Pedagogy by Dr. Clifton Ware, have been published by the People’s Music Publishing House in Beijing. They are kept in most university libraries and sold in major bookstores in China. Her recording, Silvery Night, in collaboration with Dr. Charles J. Hulin, introduces American listeners to the songs of Yao Qi, a composer from Singapore. Silvery Night is col-lected by the Singapore National Library. Her albums, Voix Suprême: French Art Songs by Jules Massenet, was praised by reviewer Gerald Fenech in the publication Music and Vision: Shudong Braamse has the perfect voice for this repertoire, and her performances are excellent throughout… Voix Suprême was a top digital album on the Navona label in spring of 2017, re-ceiving high numbers of streams and downloads. The album also received airplay from radio stations such as KALX (UC Berkeley), WRUV (Vermont), and KMUN (Oregon). Shudong’s Spanish album, Sueños de España, was released by Navona Records in February of 2019. Ken Meltzer, a critic writing reviews for FANFARE, wrote: Braamse has an attractive, bright lyric soprano voice that maintains its tonal beauty throughout the registers… She sings with a beau-tiful legato, a keen sense of phrasing, and clear diction… Midwest Records wrote: Loaded with grace as well as passion, the international classical fan has a winner on their hands with this discovery. Some songs from the album have received airplays from WCNY Syracuse in NY, and WRUV Burlington in Vermont. Shudong received a gold medal in March of 2019 from Global Music Awards for her album Sueños de España.
Dr. Braamse received her bachelor’s in music education from Fuyang Teacher’s College in China; her M.M. and D.M.A. in vocal Performance from Michigan State University. She has studied with Zhang Wei, Claritha Buggs Jacobs, Meredith Zara and Patricia Green. After teach-ing as a full-time professor for 18 years at Southeastern University, currently she is an adjunct professor of voice at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida.