American-born soprano, Jill Feldman, is a leading artist in the field of medieval, baroque and classical performances. Her highly expressive style combines an agile vocal technique with close attention to the dramatic content, beauty and meaning of the text.
Jill Feldman earned a degree in music from the University of California. Parallel studies in European literature kindled an intense love for the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and led naturally to her immersion in the vocal styles of the period. She trained with Lillian Loran in San Francisco, and, in 1980, was awarded an Alfred Hertz Scholarship to perfect her interpretation of early vocal music under the guidance of Andrea von Ramm in Basel. Shortly thereafter she made her dramatic debut in three productions: in the role of La musica in Monteverdi’s Orfeo directed by Phillip Brett and staged in Berkeley, California; as Clerio in Cavalli’s Erismena at the Festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy; and on tour with the medieval ensemble, Sequentia, in their much lauded performance of Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen.

It was in 1981, at the request of William Christie, that Jill Feldman joined Les Arts Florissants in Paris. With this renowned ensemble she created the title-role of Charpentier’s Médée; their recording (Harmonia Mundi) won the Gramophone Record Award in 1985, the Grand Prix Charles Cros and the Grand Prix du Disque de Montreux.

Following her success in Médée, Jill Feldman was invited by Nicholas McGegan to tour in California with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in a solo recital of French baroque music for soprano and orchestra. She continued to perform and record with Philharmonia in their award winning performances of Handel’s oratorio Susanna and the cantata Clori, Tirsi and Fileno (Harmonia Mundi USA).

Since then, over 60 recordings have followed including five solo recitals of English and Italian 17th century music: Udite amanti Monteverdi, D’India, Rossi, Strozzi, Carissimi (Linn Records), Henry Purcell :Ayres from Orpheus Britannicus with lutenist Nigel North, and Henry Purcell: Harmonia Sacra with organist Davitt Moroney (Arcana), Pianger di dolcezza with Mara Galassi, harp, and Karl Ernst Schröder, chitarrone: Italian poetry set to music by Giulio Caccini and Sigismondo D’India (Stradivarius), and most recently Domenico Mazzocchi: Musiche sacre e morali with harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss (AS Productions).

Jill Feldman has appeared as a soloist in the Haydn Schöpfung (Frans Brüggen), Handel Carmelite Vespers EMI, (Andrew Parrot), Delalande Motets at the Chapelle Royale de Versailles (Jordi Savall), Cesti Orontea ,and Cavalli Xerses Harmonia Mundi (René Jacobs), Stradella Lo schiavo liberato at the Teatro di Modena (Enrico Gatti), Monteverdi Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patri at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (Alan Curtis), and the title role in Marazzoli’s La vita humana at the Tramway in Glasgow (Warwick Edwards). She has worked often with viola da gambist Paolo Pandolfo (Ensemble Labyrinto), and with Pedro Memelsdorff (Ensemble Mala Punica) with whom she has made recordings for Arcana and Erato. In the realm of contemporary music, Jill Feldman has performed with the ensemble Duix in concerts at the Villa Medici in Rome, Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, the Ysbreker Festival in Amsterdam, the Ars Musica Festival in Brussels and the Cité de la Musique in Paris.

Jill Feldman teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zürich, and for the Accademia di musiga antiga in Portugal.