"If you feel like singing, sing."

~Jane Falbury

(Judy Garland, Summer Stock)

Canadian-Norwegian mezzo-soprano Kiiri Michelsen is a versatile performer, praised for her "lovely warm voice and excellent technique".  Since her first singing stage role at age 16, her love of performing vocal music in various genres has only grown over the years.  From Bach to Brahms, Grieg to Gershwin, Vivaldi to Weill, Kiiri is equally at home in repertoire from the Baroque to the contemporary.  Her interest in performing contemporary classical music has led to collaborations with composers on new works written for her voice, as well as other premieres.  She has premiered works by, among others, Liova Bueno, David Loeb, and Anna Höstman.  In addition to her performances as a 'serious' classical singer, Kiiri's fondness for performing in lighter repertoire and non-classical styles means she can also be heard singing in shows with repertoires such as the American Songbook catalogue, Broadway hits, British popular songs from wartime eras, and French chansons.

In staged performance, Kiiri has enjoyed inhabiting various roles.  Whether in full productions, staged scenes, or innovative approaches to art song, she has relished her time spent as Hermia (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Lucretia (The Rape of Lucretia), Ottavia (L'incoronazione di Poppea), Carmen (Carmen), Hansel (Hansel and Gretel), a cabaret singer (Schönberg cabaret), and others.  She also premiered The Young Lady, a leading role in Höstman's chamber opera "What Time is it Now?" in a CBC Radio/Victoria Symphony celebration of Canadian poet P.K. Page.  In recent seasons her focus has been on concert and recital repertoire, highlights of which have been period-performance Bach (St. John Passion, various cantatas), Handel's Amarilli vezzosa, Jephtha, Solomon, and Messiah (alto solos and, for a gender-bender version, the bass arias), art song repertoire in various languages, and lighter selections including Gershwin, Porter, Piaf, and others.  Kiiri is an avid promoter of the enchanting but lesser-known art song repertoire of Scandinavia, and delights in expanding awareness of this wonderful music and its languages through her performances and coaching work. One of Kiiri's most recent performance projects was as writer and performer for Storytime Songs, a concert experience in collaboration with baritone Nathan McDonald, in which art songs are woven into a newly written fairytale as a way to introduce children to classical music.

Kiiri has sung under the direction of, among others, Timothy Vernon, Steven Devine, János Sándor, Marc Destrubé, and Tania Miller, and has collaborated with musicians such as Frank Chu, Melanie Cancade, Douglas Hensley, Peter Dent, and Patricia Kostek.  She has performed in concert with various ensembles and concert series, including the Victoria Baroque Players, the Victoria Choral Society, the Victoria Symphony, the Pacific Baroque Festival, and the MADDWEve Hornby Island Recital Series.

Kiiri comes from a rich musical background: as a youngster she sang in choirs and played piano, violin, saxophone, and trombone before choosing to pursue post-secondary training in piano and voice.  Kiiri holds a Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance (secondary focus: Musicology) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Music with Distinction (Piano/Voice, with a special interest in collaborative piano and chamber music).  Her vocal training has taken her to various locations nationally and internationally for workshops and professional development courses, including among others Opera NUOVA, the Vancouver International Song Institute (Theatre of Art Song), CAMMAC Intensive Vocal Workshops (Montreal), the North Sea Vocal Academy (Denmark), VCM's Opera Studio, and the VCM Oratorio Program.  Kiiri is honoured to have done extensive vocal work - which has had a profound influence on her as both singer and teacher - with several of Canada's leading singers and pedagogues, most especially: Jan Simons (Montréal), Cathérine Sévigny (Montréal), Benjamin Butterfield (Victoria), and Nancy Argenta (Victoria).
From work in intensive training programs, coachings, and masterclasses, those whose guidance remains ever fresh for Kiiri include: Audrey Hyland (U.K.), Ingrid Attrot (Victoria), Michael McMahon (Montréal), Robert Holliston (Victoria), Selena James (Victoria), Noelle Barker (U.K.), Kristen Bühl Møller (Denmark), and Rebecca Hass (Victoria).

A life-long lover of languages, Kiiri has performed repertoire in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Czech, Russian, and Latin.

Kiiri is based in beautiful Victoria, B.C., Canada, where she lives with her composer husband, melodious daughter, and cooing son.