Marian Dijkhuizen

Biography

Marian Dijkhuizen is a versatile singer whose repertoire contains works from early baroque to modern music.

She sang roles in baroque operas by Handel and Purcell, but also appeared in the newly written chamber opera Forelle Stanley by the Swiss composer Daniel Fueter. At the Dutch National Opera she was heard in the world premiere of Only the Sound Remains, written by Kaija Saariaho and directed by Peter Sellars.

She performs the role of the Younger daughter in Trauernacht; a scenic version of Bach cantatas directed by Katie Mitchell, with the Ensemble Pygmalion under the baton of Raphaël Pichon. Marian Dijkhuizen sings the alto and mezzo-soprano soli in oratorios by Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Durufle and Dvorak, among others. Active as a concert soloist, she has worked with conductors such as Peter Dijkstra, Risto Joost, Daniel Reuss and Clau Scherrer and orchestras like Kammerorchester Basel, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Concerto Copenhagen and B´rock.

Her love for music leads her to contacts with diverse chamber music partners with whom she can make and perform own programs and enjoy the immense resource of everything written. Marian Dijkhuizen won prizes at the Prinses Christina Concours for young musicians in the Netherlands, the Kiwanis Wettbewerb in Zürich and at the international contest Cantate Bach in Greifswald, Germany. Recently she got second prize at the international Telemann contest in Magdeburg.

She started her singing studies in The Hague and continued to study in Zürich with Werner Güra. There she obtained her master’s degree of opera with highest distinction. She took part in masterclasses with Thomas Hampson, Margreet Honig, Meinard Kraak, Abbie Furmansky, Tom Allen, John Norris, Ann Rodiger and Guido Witte and keeps working with inspiring coaches and bodyworkers to learn how to free the voice, body and mind, in order to let the music speak for itself.