Martha Guth, soprano
My whole life I have been drawn to storytelling. I am not sure that I am wise or good at anything else, but I know I can sing with nuance, passion, and honesty, and program a darn fine concert. I have spent the bulk of 20 years in performance working on concert repertoire, collaboration in every way, and as an avid art song singer. I love that art song is layered in rich metaphor. I love that it is a marriage of singer and pianist; composer and poet; story and rumination. It is precisely this duality that is at the heart of all art song. Song takes the solitary pursuit of poetry and reflects it back for the wider world. If you are here because you wish more of this in your life, on your stage, from your music, then you are in the right place.
Downloadable Biography HERE
Downloadable CV HERE
Downloadable performance resume HERE
Downloadable headshot 1 HERE
Downloadable headshot 2 HERE
What I’m up to:
Juno and Latin Grammy-nominated soprano Martha Guth’s recital and concert highlights include Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, The National Cathedral, St. John Smith Square, The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The Chicago Philharmonic, and many more. Her longtime recital and touring partners include Graham Johnson and Erika Switzer. Her recitals have been recorded and broadcast for the CBC/Radio-Canada, the BBC, and the WDR and she is proud to have worked under the batons of Maestro’s Seiji Ozawa, Robert Spano, Helmut Rilling, John Nelson, Richard Bradshaw, and Alan Gilbert among many others.
Her discography includes Summer Night, a Juno-nominated disc of songs by Healy Willan on Centrediscs for The Canadian Art Song Project with Allyson McHardy, Helen Becqué, and Peter Barrett; Das Ewig Weibliche a solo disc of Schubert songs with Penelope Crawford on fortepiano; Roberto Sierra’s Beyond the Silence of Sorrow with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico for Naxos (nominated for a 2016 Latin GRAMMY); John Fitz-Roger’s Magna Mysteria for the Innova label; Go by Contraries, songs of Andrew Staniland with Baritone Tyler Duncan and Pianist Erika Switzer released on Centre Discs, The Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes for Sparks & Co., and The Five Boroughs Song Book for GVR records.
With Erika Switzer, she is Co-Founder/Director of Sparks & Wiry Cries, a non-profit dedicated to art song spanning publication, live performance, and commission of new works. Sparks is the force behind the popular regional songSLAM’s that are presented in partnership with other song organizations and Universities and presents its own songSLAM Festival every January in NYC. As a Co-Director of Sparks & Wiry Cries, she led a producing partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society for the world premiere of Freedom on the Move: Songs in Flight by Shawn Okpebholo and featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Karen Slack, Reggie Mobley, Will Liverman, and Howard Watkins. Martha is Assistant Professor of Voice at Ithaca College, and on faculty at SongFest and the Vocal Academy at the Collaborative Piano Institute. At SongFest, she is also the Artistic Administrator for their Composer Mentorship program. She has presented lectures, masterclasses, and recitals at the University of Toronto, Indiana University, The University of Manitoba, Notre Dame, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and many more. Upcoming performances are at Oxford Lieder with pianist Graham Johnson & baritone Stephan Loges, London with Tomasz Lis, a Mozart Requiem with the Mobile Symphony, and more.