DORA OHRENSTEIN
Voice

NYU, The Actors Studio, Wagner College, Drew University

Soprano Dora Ohrenstein has been widely hailed as a gifted interpreter of art song, vocal chamber works and contemporary music. A singer of striking versatility, she has premiered countless works written by leading composers, and is equally at home in European art song, baroque and medieval music, and cabaret.

Much sought after as a chamber musician, she has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Brentano Quartet, Cassatt Quartet, Kronos Quartet, Essential Music, Sequitur, SEM Ensemble and Newband, among others.

For a decade she was solo vocalist of the Philip Glass Ensemble, appearing at major halls and festivals throughout the world, including numerous appearances at Carnegie and Avery Fischer Halls, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Boston's Symphony Hall, the Frankfurt Opera, Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Festival, and tours to Germany, Italy, Japan, and Australia.

Ms. Ohrenstein’s one-woman show, Urban Diva, premiered at the Icebreaker in Amsterdam and at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York, and has been presented at the Walker Arts Center, the Cabrillo Festival, the Spoleto Festival USA, Honolulu Academy of the Arts, and many other venues. These performances, as well as the Urban Diva disc on CRI’s Emergency Music series, were widely praised for daring spirit and extraordinarily versatile vocalism.

Other theatrical works in which soprano has appeared are Karen Bamonte's A Feather on the Breath and Fallen Shadows; the cabaret production Songs of Sex and Solitude, produced by the New York ensemble Sequitur at the Knitting Factory; Joshua Fried's Headphone Follies, at HERE; dancer Karole Armitage’s Life Story, at the Joyce Theatre; and Conrad Cumming's chamber opera Photo-Op at La Mama ETC. As Director of the opera workshop at University at Buffalo, she created Mozart in the Middle, a production drawing parallels between Mozart's operas and his life, a multimedia production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Handel's Serse.

An ardent champion of American art song, Ms. Ohrenstein was Executive Producer and a featured performer on a four-disc set of The Complete Songs of Charles Ives, heralded as a landmark of recorded American music. She also produced and performs on Nothing Divine is Mundane, a recording of Virgil Thomson songs.

Her discography includes several CBS Masterworks recordings of music by Philip Glass, Conrad Cummings’ Photo Op on CRI, a New World recording of music by Ben Johnston, an XI release of music Mary Ellen Childs, a medieval chant recording on Nonesuch, and additional releases on the Private Music, Dossier and Opus One labels. she is currently developing a recorded anthology of recent American song for New World Records.

Ms. Ohrenstein's passionate interest in pedagogy and teacher training led her to become President of the New York Singing Teachers' Association from 2000 through 2003. Her pedagogical articles have been published in the Journal of Singing, NYSTA Bulletin, VASTA Journal, and Voice Foundation Newsletter. She has twice presented teaching workshops at the Voice Foundation, and she teaches voice at NYU, The Actors Studio, Wagner College, Drew University, and in her private studio.