Sophie Junker

Soprano Sophie Junker has specialized in historically oriented performances and recordings of Baroque and Classical-era opera and choral music. She has a large repertory, however, that extends as far forward as Gershwin. Junker was born in Verviers, in Belgium's Liège province, in 1985. She took her first singing lessons from her father. Junker enrolled at the Institute of Music and Pedagogy in Namur, Belgium, earning voice and music education degrees there, and then completing internships in Denmark and moving to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Scholarships and important competition victories, including those at the 2010 London Handel Competition and the 2012 International Cesti Competition in Innsbruck, Austria, helped Junker round out her education and begin to find international engagements. The Cesti win and an appearance in a 2014 Handel concert steered her in the direction of early music, and many of her operatic roles have fallen into a span from Carissimi to Beethoven (Marzelline in Fidelio). However, she has a varied repertory that includes Sophie in Werther, and she is among the few non-Anglophone singers to essay the role of Maria in the musical West Side Story. Junker has frequently appeared in choral and vocal repertory with leading early music groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the Bach Collegium Japan, and the English Concert. With the ensemble Vox Luminis, she appeared in 2016 at the revived theater at the Chateau d'Hardelot in Condette, France. Closer to home, she has often performed at Liège Cathedral and sung at the city's opera house. Junker has appeared on several recordings, including a 2018 Dacapo recording of composer Niels Gade's opera Erlkönigs Tochter. In 2020, she released her solo debut, La Francesina: Handel's Nightingale, tracing the repertory of soprano Elisabeth Duparc and her contributions to Handel's operas and oratorios of the 1730s and 1740s. ~ James Manheim