Passionate and exciting, Canadian Soprano Sharon Azrieli Perez has been hailed as a “mistress of merry inflection and piquant words” by Andrew Porter of the New Yorker Magazine. She has performed on leading opera and concert stages throughout Europe, North America and Asia under the direction of such conductors as Yves Abel, Marco Armiliato, Maurizio Benini, Boris Brott, Jacques de la Cote, Jean-Francois Rivest, and the late Richard Bradshaw.
Upcoming engagements in 2011 include Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmelites with One World Symphony in New York City, a concert with the musicians of One World Symphony in Montreal, a recital at the Red Sea Festival, a recording for the Milken Archives on the famous Naxos label, an appearance at the Baltimore Opera Gala, and the title role in Aida with the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera.
Sharon’s 2010-2011 season began with four concerts for the prestigious Orford Music Festival in Quebec. She also sang a special concert of “Forbidden Music” for the Brott Music Festival in Hamilton, Ontario. In September Sharon sang a sold out concert honouring Zipora Gisser of Montreal. October brought Sharon to the critically acclaimed Israel Chamber Orchestra in Tel Aviv, where she sang a concert of Cantorial Classics orchestrated specially for the ICO by young Canadian composer Harry Stafylakis. In November, Sharon returns to Montreal for a concert with the widely popular Festivale Sepharade de Montreal, and in December she returns to the ICO for the world premiere performances of works by living Israeli composers Ofer Ben-Amots and Tzvi Avni. Sharon will be recording this year on the Naxos Label for the acclaimed Milken Archives of Jewish Music. In March 2011, Sharon will make her debut with the Baltimore Opera, singing in their gala.
A consummate concert and recital artist, Sharon has performed on stages in Europe, North America and Asia. She has performed with the Haifa and Jerusalem Symphonies, the Tokyo Symphony, the McGill chamber Orchestra as well as with many other orchestras. Highlights of her Oratorio concerts have been the Dvorak Stabat Mater with the Orchestre de L’Universite de Montreal, under the direction of Jean-Francois Rivest, and the Verdi Requiem with the New West Symphony under the baton of Boris Brott. This past Spring Sharon sang her first Mahler 2nd Symphony with the Orchestre de l’Isle under the direction of Cristian Gort.
In 2008 Sharon sang Liu (Turandot) with the New Israel Opera, and in 2009 the Mahler 8th Symphony with the National Orchestra of Canada. In 2010 Sharon sang Mozart’s extraordinary and rarely performed K.505 Ch’io mi scordi di te and Knoxville Summer of 1915 by Samuel Barber with a 24 piece orchestra under the direction of Shalom Bard. Constantly in demand to sing for her community and various fund raisers across Canada, Sharon has added many song cycles by Berlioz, Duparc, among others and has discovered and added the anonymous composers of the genre ‘Ladino music’ to her repertoire.
Sharon began her career at the Canadian Opera Company as Juliette in Romeo and Juliette in 1992 and sang Mimi in La Bohème, as well, with the young artists program. She went on to sing Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Sarasota Opera where she was acclaimed unanimously by Florence Fisher of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune as “wily yet candid, flirtatious, practical and utterly charming. And her bell-like soprano is always exquisitely in tune”. She also garnered rave reviews as Laurette in Le Docteur Miracle with L’Opéra Francais de New York, and Nedda in Il Pagliacci with the summer New York Opera Festival.
After the birth of her two sons, Sharon retired briefly from the Operatic Stage and worked full time as a Cantor in New York and Montreal. In 2005 She returned to her first love, the great operas of Verdi, under the tutelage of Bill Schuman in New York and Rosemarie Landry in Montreal. She continues to study with these wonderful teachers and is looking forward to interpreting roles which are now much more demanding vocally, and deeper in terms of the psychological understanding and expression they require.