Grammy-nominated D’Anna Fortunato has long been an admired favorite on the American orchestral scene and a noted operatic artist as well. She has appeared as a soloist with Kurt Mazur and the New York Philharmonic, Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and with other preeminent American orchestras, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Cleveland, Dallas, Minnesota, St. Luke's Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the National Symphony. Highlights of her orchestral engagements have included Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges and Verdi's Falstaff with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony; Mozart's Requiem with Ottawa's National Arts Center Orchestra; Gluck's Orfeo with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette with Minnesota Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony; Ah, Perfido! with the Pittsburgh Symphony; Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bucher with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Mazur; and Messiah with the New Japan Philharmonic and Osaka's Telemann Orchestra. She also participated in Roger Norrington’s series of worldwide performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
Ms. Fortunato has performed major operatic roles with leading companies across the country. Writing of her New York City Opera debut in Handel's Alcina, The New Yorker called her “a Handelian of crisp accomplishment.” She has performed Handel's operas in such venues as Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Monadnock Music, while singing major roles in 8 premiere Handel CDs for Albany, Newport Classics, and Vox. Among her other leading roles are appearances with Glimmerglass (Beatrice in Berlioz's Beatrice and Benedict); Kentucky Opera (Artist-in Residence, Maddalena in Rigoletto, and Dido in Dido and Aeneas); Connecticut Grand Opera (Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Opera San Jose (Sarah in Mollicone's Hotel Eden), Rochester Opera (Seibel in Faust and Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte), Florida Grand Opera (Dorabella) and with Boston Lyric Opera on many occasions, most recently Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro.
Her long list of repeat festival appearances includes Berlin’s Spectrum Festival, the Rome Bach Festival, Carmel, Tanglewood, Casals, Blossom, Rockport, Newport, and Vaison-la-Romaine. She has appeared with noted ensembles including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Boston Camerata, Emmanuel Music, the Bach Aria Group, the Cantata Singers, the Boston Chamber Music Society, and Duo “2” (Peter H. Bloom, multiple flutes and Mary Jane Rupert, piano and harp). Composers such as John Harbison, Stephen Jaffe, Stephen Albert, and John Heiss have chosen her to give premieres of their compositions. She has researched and performed extensively the little-known works of Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, and Charles-Martin Loeffler.
In 2006, Ms. Fortunato was a Grammy nominee in three categories including best classical vocal recording. Her discography includes more than 40 CDs on labels such as Harmonia Mundi, SONY Classics, Vox, Koch International, Newport Classics, London-Decca, Nonesuch, Naxos and Albany. A regional Met Winner, she also received the Naumburg Prize and the Jacopo Peri Award. She serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music.
Education: B.M. with Honors, and an M.M., Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music. Diploma, The Mozarteum. Tanglewood Fellow. Studied with Gladys Childs Miller, Ellen Repp, John Moriarty. Master classes with Phyllis Curtin, Sena Jurinac.