Canadian mezzo-soprano Renée Brad has performed in opera, oratorio, musical theatre, and chamber and solo recitals throughout Canada and in New York. Renée recently premiered her new cabaret Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession for the Golden Apple Theatre Company. She has appeared with Edmonton Opera, delighting audiences as Cousin Hebe in their Sterling Award winning production of HMS Pinafore. Also for Edmonton Opera, she has sung Kate in Pirates of Penzance, Annina in La Traviata, Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and the Dama/Hexe in Macbeth. She appeared as The Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and The Witch in Hansel and Gretel with Opera Nuova. Roles for Opera Saskatchewan include Tisbe in La Cenerentola, Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. She has sung Mercedes in Carmen with Saskatoon Opera, Popova in Walton’s The Bear, and Kate in Elizabeth Raum’s The Dream of Nicholas Flood Davin with the Regina Centenary Project. Favourite theatre roles include Rose in The Secret Garden, Meg Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Katisha in The Mikado, Amy in Company, and Ella in Bells are Ringing. A frequent soloist with orchestras, Renée has sung Karl Jenkin’s Stabat Mater, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Paukenmesse, Schubert’s Mass in E-flat, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem, Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium and Johannes Passion, Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Renée’s recording of Elizabeth Raum’s How Bodies Leave Ecstatic Marks with the Contrasts Trio for the CMC Centrediscs label won a 2008 Western Canadian Music Award.
Renée lives in Edmonton with her husband Vern and their children Zara and Gabriel where she maintains an active private studio, is a voice instructor in the MacEwan University Theatre Arts Program, and is in demand as an adjudicator and clinician.