Marianna Busching

Voice

Marianna Busching, performing artist and voice teacher, is a mezzo-soprano and a native of Minnesota who has performed extensively in the United States and in Europe. Well-known as a singer and teacher in the Washington DC area, she has sung over one hundred performances of Handel’s Messiah with such choral groups and orchestras as the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Columbia Pro Cantare, the Calvin College Oratorio Society, the Handel Society of Baltimore, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Naval Academy at Hood College in Maryland. She has performed in Bach festivals at Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, the Bach Festival at Winter Park, Florida, and has appeared as alto soloist multiple times with the Washington Bach Consort, accompanying them to Germany for fourteen performances of Bach’s Mass in B-Minor.

Among her many appearances at the Kennedy Center, she was soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the National Symphony, Bach’s Mass in B-Minor, Vivaldi’s Gloria and Mozart’s Mass in C-Minor with the Washington Oratorio Society, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion as guest soloist with the Balwin-Wallace Chorus and Orchestra, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the chorus and orchestra of the Catholic University of America. She also was the mezzo soloist at the Kennedy Center in Copland’s In the Beginning, sung with the recent Paul Hill Chorale. Her performances at the Washington National Cathedral include Bach’s St. John Passion, which was broadcast on radio, Janacek’s Glogolitic Mass, Ralph Vaughn William’s Mass in G, and solo appearances with the Washington Cathedral Choral Society in their program of “A Millenium of Russian Music” which is available on Centaur Records.

She has performed at Town Hall in New York in Rossini’s Tancredi and sang the role of “Brangaene” in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Eve Queler at Carnegie Hall to critical acclaim in the New York Times and the Newhouse News which wrote, “Her voice is strong and rises most wonderfully to the top.” Her New York performances in Mercken Concert Hall at Lincoln Center included the role of “Irene” in Handel’s Theodora, which the New Yorker magazine called “moving,” and Handel’s Hercules, in which her portrayal of “Dejanira” prompted the New York Times to write, “Ms. Busching gave the almost formal dance of the plot the urgency of deep feeling.” .Her performances of Verdi’s Requiem at the Winter Park Bach Festival, with the Hartford Chorus and Orchestra, and with the Fairfax Symphony also have drawn critical acclaim.

Performances in Europe have included her as guest soloist with the Columbia Pro Cantare, where she sang in England, Poland and the Czech Republic. She also led master classes, taught voice and sang in concert in Taiwan in March 2004.

A few of her opera roles include “Carmen,” sung with the Summer Opera Theater of Washington and “Suzuki” in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly with the Atlanta Lyric Opera. Her performances as the “Sorceress” in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the Folger Consort were called “both comic and sinister” by the Washington Post.
Other reviews from the Washington Post have hailed her singing as “powerful and dramatic;” and “a voice humming with urgency.” The Atlanta Journal described her voice as “deep and silvery,” and the Milwaukee Journal called her “the strongest magic of the evening.”

Ms. Busching has recorded fifty-six songs of German composer Hans Pfitzner with pianist Michael Cordovana, also on the Centaur Record label, twenty-six of which are currently available. Fanfare magazine praised her “steady, silvery mezzo,” Panpipes touted her “exceptional technique in which her tone is matched from top to bottom,” and American Record Review advised those who want to hear Pfitzner’s songs to go out and buy this disc.

Ms. Busching received her Bachelor of Arts degree in voice and piano from Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana, and her Master of Music in Vocal Performance degree from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Caroline. As well as teaching privately, she has been on the vocal faculty of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University for fifteen years, performing there as well in three solo recitals and in Mahler’s Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies and in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She has also been on the faculty of The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at the Catholic University of America and is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and Sigma Alpha Iota. She is a popular judge of vocal competitions, and her own awards include the National Federation of Young Artists Award and the Washington Area Music Association Award.

Vocal Program
Vocal Program, Faculty