Amanda Pitt performs a wide range of repertoire from opera to contemporary music. She has sung at many of the major London venues and around the world, giving several world premieres. Amanda has had many successful collaborations with the pianist David Owen Norris. A Sunday Times review of a recital using Clara Schumann’s piano said “…Pitt put [Frauenliebe und leben] across with simplicity and conviction, her husky vibrato a natural throb of passion.”
Amanda’s solo recordings include music by Lili Boulanger and Janácek for Hyperion, Ruth Crawford Seeger for Deutsche Grammophon, Roger Quilter’s folksong arrangements for Naxos, songs by Edward Elgar on Avie (“Sea Pictures is given in Elgar’s piano version in the original high keys, which Pitt manages splendidly”), music by Trevor Hold with David Wilson-Johnson on Dutton and ‘Entertaining Miss Austen’, newly discovered music from Jane Austen’s family collection, also on Dutton.
In opera, Amanda has worked for Stowe Opera and sings regularly for Bampton Classical Opera. Favourite roles for Bampton have included Mrs Ford in Salieri’s Falstaff , 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), Hyacinth in Apollo and Hyacinth and Virtue in The Choice of Hercules.
She is a founder member of THE WORKS: the Mozartian comic opera show, 2 Murders & a Marriage, toured to Edinburgh, Dorset, the Stour Music Festival, the Buxton Music Festival, the Oslo Chamber Festival and the Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton. Most recently, their new comic radio opera pirate extravaganza, The Jolly Roger has toured to Poole, Southampton and Oxford.
Amanda continues her successful collaboration with Norris in many varied and interesting projects. These include programmes to illustrate art exhibitions: women artists in Nottingham and Newcastle and both the Constable and Turner exhibitions at the National Gallery, Washington DC. As well as marking Elgar’s anniversary with many concerts and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast from the Bridgewater Hall, A Hawk Dreaming Poetry, a programme telling the story of Elgar’s lost love in words, pictures and music, was very well received in recitals around the country. Recently, programmes have included music from the Pleasure Gardens of London; music set to the writings of Charles Dickens and the poems of Tennyson; songs and piano music by Mendelssohn; a programme featuring the music on their ‘Entertaining Miss Austen’ CD; and songs associated with Wellington and the wars with the French.