Amanda Pitt graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with a MMus and a Principal’s Discretionary Award for Excellence. Since graduating, she has proved her versatility in a wide range of repertoire, from opera to contemporary music. She has performed at many of the major London venues and around the world, including Aldeburgh, Bath, Brighton, Guildford, Huddersfield, Oxford, Three Choirs, York, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Chicago and Washington, giving several world premières. Amanda has worked with George Benjamin, Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, Jonathan Harvey, András Schiff, James Wood, London Sinfonietta, New Music Players and Sinfonia 21. She has sung live broadcasts of works by Alexander Goehr, Harrison Birtwistle and Brian Fernyhough for BBC Radio 3. Solo recordings range from works by Lili Boulanger and Janácek for Hyperion, to music by Ruth Crawford Seeger for Deutsche Grammophon. Other solo recordings include the songs and duets of Roger Quilter with Philip Langridge and David Wilson-Johnson on Naxos, Elgar on Avie, Trevor Hold songs and ‘Entertaining Miss Austen’ on Dutton.
Amanda has regularly given recitals with David Owen Norris. Notable collaborations include a programme performed on Clara Schumann’s piano in the RNCM Schumann & Brahms Fest ‘…Pitt put this [Frauenliebe und leben] across with simplicity and conviction, her husky vibrato a natural throb of passion.’ (The Sunday Times). The duo marked Tippett’s anniversary with several performance of The Heart’s Assurance and recitals at the Three Choirs Festival and several performances of Strauss’ Four Last Songs. Other programmes included French song, vocal chamber music by Brahms, cabaret and opera galas.
In opera, Amanda has worked for Stowe Opera, Champagne Opera and sings regularly for Bampton Classical Opera; roles have included Mrs Ford in Salieri’s Falstaff and Cilia in The Taming of the Shrew by Martin Y Soler – “One of the company’s most valuable assets is Amanda Pitt… it was she… who brought out the fun and fizz in this amazingly swift-moving, clever production.” Subsequently, Amanda has sung many roles including Hyacinth in Mozart’s Apollo and Hyacinth and Virtue in Handel’s The Choice of Hercules.
Further successful projects have included inaugurating, with Norris, recitals to illustrate exhibitions of paintings by women artists in Nottingham and Newcastle and both the Constable and Turner exhibitions at the National Gallery, Washington DC. 2007 was Sir Edward Elgar’s Sesquicentennial and they marked his anniversary with a recording for Avie and recitals entitled The Unknown Elgar for a BBC Broadcast from the Bridgewater Hall, the Three Choirs Festival, marked Elgar’s actual birthday with a recital at the Royal Academy of Music and a recital on Elgar’s piano at Hatchlands. Other recitals have included programmes by Mendelssohn; music from the Pleasure Gardens of London; Entertaining Miss Austen, newly discovered music from Jane Austen’s family collection; music associated with the writings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Charles Dickens and A Musical History of the French Wars.
A founder member of THE WORKS, their comic opera extravaganzas, 2 Murders & a Marriage (a Mozart tribute)and The Jolly Roger (a pirate tribute) toured to Edinburgh, Dorset, Kent, Buxton, Oslo, Northampton, Southampton, Poole and Oxford. They developed their production of Pierrot Lunaire at Dartington, using lighting, projection and both female and male performers.