Brett Umlauf has been praised by the New York Times for her "pealing, focused sound" and
"luminous yet earthy" performances. A founding member of the all-women ensemble SIREN
Baroque and perennial principal at Morningside Opera (NYC) and Mercury Arts (Basel, Switzerland), she considers her favorite role to be Peitho in the world premiere of Kate Soper’s Here Be Sirens, named by Alex Ross (New Yorker) as one of his Ten Notable Performances of the year. Umlauf is slated to sing Soper’s new opera The Hunt in its fall 2023 premiere.
The Swedish Institute, the American Scandinavian Society, and the Swedish Women's Educational Association have awarded Brett grants for her innovative performances of the works of "Sweden’s Shakespeare," 18th-century troubadour Carl Michael Bellman, which she toured from Stockholm to Dalarna to NYC with her duo Bellman om Bellman and her quartet Skid Rococo. Brett was also a featured artist of the "exquisite...mesmerizing...deranged" (New York Times) baroque-burlesque Company XIV for nearly a decade, and held the position of soloist at Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist in Greenwich Village for 14 years before hanging up both her sequin panties and her Sunday best to pursue graduate studies in historical performance with Judith Malafronte at the Jacobs School of Music in the Midwest.
Putting her cum laude Classics degree from Dartmouth College, as well as her M.L.I.S. degree from The Palmer School to good use, Brett is currently developing a multimedia performance and travel project about women religious composers and writers from 9th-century Byzantium to 12th-century Germany to 17th-century Peru and beyond. This slow-musicking pilgrimage, entitled Hazelnut Road: Vows of Stability, Acts of Mobility, spans continents and centuries to put their works into literal dialogue with one another. Hazelnut Road will yield a digital archive and open-access repository to promote these artists’ vibrant contributions. Brett is a 2022-23 Fulbright Fellow in Greece and Turkey, the first stop on Hazelnut Road. There she is exploring the music and perceptions of 9th-c. abbess=composer Kassia (aka St. Kassiani) with chanters in the living tradition of Byzantine music and locals who perpetuate the story of the saint’s life. She will collaborate with artists in Istanbul to center Kassia in exhibitions for the Istanbul Gender Museum.
