Yetzabel Arias Fernández

Last update: 24/04/2019
Yetzabel Arias Fernandez was born in Havana, Cuba where she started her music studies in cello and piano. Graduated in choral conducting at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and singing at the Superior Institute of Art in Havana. She continues her postgraduate studies in Italy, which she took up under the direction of Vincenzo Manno in Milan and Fernando Cordeiro Opa. She has also taken courses in 17th-century Italian music interpretation with Roberto Gini at the Accademia Internazionale della Musica di Milano. Winner of the International Competition of barroque singing in Chimay, Belgium and at the same time gaining great recognition from the audience. She has also won prizes in Concorso Internazionale di Canto Barocco F. Provenzale della Cappella de’ Turchini in Naples, as well as in the Concorso Internazionale di Musica Sacra in Rome. During those years in Europe, she worked with the most distinguished Italian ensembles: Accademia Bizantina, La Risonanza, Academia Montis Regalis, La Venexiana, Cappella Pietà de’ Turchini, Arion Ensemble, Orchestra Milano Classica, Orchestra Sinfonica Rai in Turin, I Solisti della Scala and I Barocchisti, under the direction of Helmuth Rilling, Ottavio Dantone, Diego Fasolis, Claudio Cavina, Antonio Florio, Fabio Bonizzoni, Ruben Jais, etc. She has performed in important venues and halls such as Santa Cecilia concerts season in Rome, Teatre Graslin de Nantes, Societa del Quartetto in Milan, Auditorium G.Verdi in Milan, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Vienna, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, as well as Festivals in Brugges, Cologne, Stuttgart, Melk, Graz, Vienna, Ambronay, Santiago de Compostela, Barcelona, Amsterdam, The Hague, Florence, etc. On the operatic stage, Fernandez recently sang Rossane from Handel's Alessandro at the Badisches Theater in Karlsruhe, directed by Michael Form and staged by Alexander Fahima at the Handel-Festspiele 2012 &2013. In 2011 she performed Pergolesi’s Olimpiade as Argene at the Pergolesi-Spontini Festival in Jesi under the direction of Alessandro de Marchi and staged by Italo Nunziata. She sang the role of Messaggera in Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi during the 30° Sablé Festival in France and Speranza with Claudio Cavina and La Venexiana Ensemble. In 2011 Ms.Fernandez sang Mozart’s C Minor Mass with Opera di Roma's Orchestra under the direction of Jaap van Zweden, in Pergorlesi’s Olimpiade the role of Megacle under the baton of Ottavio Dantone at Opera Rara Festival (Polish premiere) at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Krakow and the great Bach's masterpieces Matthaus Passion with Diego Fasolis in Lugano and B Minor Mass with Jordi Savall at Styriarte Festival. She took part in the European tour as Piacere from Handel’s Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza. Among her last engagements, Ms Fernandez performed Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans as Abra at the Dortmund Festival in Germany with Accademia Bizantina, Caldara's Oratorio per la Passione as Giovanni in Wroclaw and Bach's secular cantatas at the Montreal Bach Festival and Washington DC with La Risonanza. She made several recordings for Glossa. Among them Handel’s Tirsi, Clori e Fileno which won the important Stanley Prize 2010 for the Best Recording of the Year. Most of her concerts were broadcasted live in Italy and all over Europe. Some of her forthcoming engagements include Handel's Cantatas at the Handel-Festspiele in Halle, Vivaldi's La Senna Festeggiante in Utrecht, Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate and Requiem conducted by Ton Koopman in The Haag.