Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mezzo Soprano Amber Fasquelle’s career currently unfolds in Europe, where she now resides in Berlin. Most recently, in the fall of 2021, Amber was a finalist in the prestigious Montserrat Caballé competition.
Amber’s work began in Europe in 2018 as the winner of the prestigious Opera Foundation Competition, garnering her a year of work as Stipendiat with Deutsche Oper Berlin. Her time in the Ensemble for the 2018/19 season featured her on the stage in such roles as Flora in La Traviata, Mercédès in Carmen, Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen, and many more. Amber’s season with Deutsche Oper Berlin ended under the Baton of Sir Simon Rattle, as The Musician in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut.
In 2019 she was offered the role of Curra in Deutsche Oper’s Frank Castorf production of La Forza del Destino where she was used not only as a singer but as a spoken word actress. Alongside her work at Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2019, Amber was also invited to join the Centre Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo with the Palau de las Bellas Artes in Valencia Spain. Amber spent two years training as a young artist with the company. In 2020/21 her work on the stage was limited due to the covid pandemic, but she performed as a concert recitalist with the company, and sang Meg in Falstaff, and Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana.
In 2017 Amber sang the Third Lady in Cincinnati Opera’s “Komische Oper” acclaimed Barrie Kosky production of Die Zauberflöte. The following summer of 2018, she sang with great success the role of Hannah in the stunning and intimate Laura Kaminsky Opera As One. The role was a revelation of meaning for Amber, and the power of the storytelling and healing relevance it has for our time allowed her to access her full communicative powers. For this acclaimed performance, she was noted in the press as a “superb Mezzo Soprano” and “[an] excellent singing actor...rhapsodic” (Cincinnati Business Courier, 2018.)
Throughout her young career, Amber has performed as a soloist at a number of renowned musical venues, such as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Mondavi Center in Davis, CA, and Cincinnati’s Historic Music Hall. Throughout Amber’s education she has sought richness and range, focusing her energies not just on the vocal arts, but in a dedicated study of drama, foreign language, and a general love of learning. All of her time in higher education was spent in the state of Ohio, first at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, followed by the Cleveland Institute of Music, Case Western Reserve University, and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM.) Her accomplishments in University earned her a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance, two secondary concentrations in French and German, as well as an Artist Diploma in operatic study.
During her studies Amber furthered her love for Early Music in various Early Music Ensembles, culminating in her involvement with Cleveland’s acclaimed baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, whom she toured with in December of 2015 for their Sacrum Mysterium and Christmas Vespers tour. Her interest in classical music extends beyond the roots of Early Music and into other realms of the tradition such as Lied and Song. Amber followed this love to Britain where she participated in the prestigious Aldeburgh Britten Pears Music Festival as a young artist in 2016. There she immersed herself in the intensified study of Brahm’s song literature under the distinction of Thomas Quasthoff, Richard Stokes, and Alexander Fleischer. Amber’s love of Opera has guided her course stronger than any of her other passions, and she has participated in several renowned music festivals as a young artist such as Opera Theater of Saint Louis in 2018, and The Aspen Music Festival, both in 2014 and 2015, where she was the recipient of the prestigious New Horizons Fellowship.
Other notable projects in Amber’s developing career served to deepen her work and creative endeavors in various concentrations. In 2016 Amber was the recipient of the Liebowitz Fellowship, providing her the opportunity to further her linguistic capabilities in German at the Middlebury Institute. In 2017 Amber wrote and premiered the leading role in collaboration with students of the CCM acting department’s Transmigration Festival of new works. Her most influential work in acting occurred in her private dramatic study and friendship with the late Ron Wilson who gave her the foundations for her craft and expanded her love and reverence for the theater.
A member of an El Salvadorian family, Amber draws upon the varied and rich influences of her upbringing within her artistry. Inspired by all the arts, Amber Fasquelle seeks to bring thoughtful and dedicated vision to any of her various creative endeavors
