Gitanjali Mathur

Gitanjali (Gitu) Mathur (born March 19, 1977 in Pilani Rajasthan, India) is an Indian-American soprano.

She studied Hindustani classical music at an early age, in Pilani with Shri Narayan Rao Kelkar, a renowned vocalist in the Gwalior gharana. She moved to the United States with her parents and brother, at the age of 8, first to Atlanta, Georgia, then to West Lafayette, Indiana. After completing her high school at West Lafayette Junior and Senior High School, Gitanjali studied music at Indiana University with Ms. Camilla Williams, specializing in Voice Performance. During this period, Gitanjali received several accolades including winning the Keller competition in West Lafayette in 1999 after which, in 2000, she performed "Exultate, Jubilate!" by W. A. Mozart with the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra in Indiana.

She has made her career mainly as a solo concert, oratorio, and chamber ensemble singer with some excursions into opera and has started attracting attention for her knack for early music and for her superlative interpretive gifts. She is equally at home in Hindustani classical music, Carnatic music, oratorios, operas, choral, contemporary music, and recital repertoire. She made her choral debut at New York's Carnegie Hall in 2005, her solo debut at the same venue in 2007, and her operatic debut in 2005 as Despina in Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" in Rome, Italy, at the Festivale di Roma.

She has sung with noted conductors such as Helmuth Rilling, Craig Hella Johnson, Paul Hillier, Nigel North, Stanley Ritchie, and Jan Harrington. She has sung at the Oregon Bach Festival, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Aspen Music Festival, and the Amherst Early Music Festival. She attended the Bloomington Early Music Festival in 2000 and was the cover for the role of Alcina in the opera "Alcina" by Handel. In the summer of 2003, Ms. Mathur was chosen for one of the lead roles at the Amherst Early Music Festival's production of the opera "La Purpura de la Rosa" by Thomas Torrejon y Velasco, conducted by Andrew Lawrence King. In the summer of 2004 she sang with the nationally acclaimed Santa Fe Desert Chorale.

Ms. Mathur currently sings and is the soloist with various professional groups in Austin, Texas, such as Conspirare, conducted by Craig Hella Johnson, and the Texas Early Music Project, conducted by Daniel Johnson. She regularly sings with Dr. Kenny Sheppard in the Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble. Gitanjali has previously been the soloist for Handel's Messiah and "Judas Maccabeus" by Handel, Mozart's "Requiem", and "The Midsummernight's Dream" by Mendelssohn with the Austin Symphony Orchestra and Peter Bay. She sings for the Saint David's Episcopal Church with conductor Dr. David Stevens. From 2005-2007, she has sung thrice in Germany-- Stuttgart, Esslingen, and Goeppingen--with Helmuth Rilling, Uwe Scheussler, and Klaus Rothaupt respectively. She has also sung with Dr. Jong Kim at Lynchburg College, in Lynchburg, VA in 2005 & 2006. Gitanjali is on the Grammy nominated CD "Requiem" on the Clarion Records label with "'Conspirare", conducted by Craig Hella Johnson in 2005 in Troy, New York.

Ms. Mathur runs a private voice studio at her home in Austin and also teaches private voice lessons at McNeil High School.

External links

* [http://www.early-music.org/bios/gitanjalimathur/index.html Discography at Texas Early Music Project]