SOPRANO
“The revelation here was Bronwen Forbay as Adina. Though regularly seen and always admired in local productions, Forbay is now in possession of a voice in full bloom. At once powerful, radiant, timbrally beautiful, and balanced throughout the range, her soprano is that of a singer at the top of her game; she has never sounded better or been so eminently watchable. She seems to me entirely ready to break into the front rank of sopranos internationally; extraordinarily though, she remains South Africa’s best-kept-operatic secret.”
OPERA Magazine
Born in Durban (South Africa), Fulbrighter and artist-teacher soprano BRONWEN FORBAY, has performed for both the late Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth the Second. Principal operatic roles include critically acclaimed performances of Orasia, Queen of Thrace, in the American Premier of Telemann’s Orpheus, and Mozart's Queen of the Night, both with the Wolf Trap Opera Company. Other lead role successes include the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor and Violetta Valery in La Traviata with the Cape Town Opera, as well as the title role in Amarillo Opera's She never lost a passenger: the Story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Highly acclaimed performances include Adina in L'Elisir d'amore with the Gauteng Opera (Johannesburg, South Africa), the Soprano Soloist in Mozart’s Requiem (Waco, TX) Orff’s Carmina Burana (San Antonio, TX), and the premier of semi-autobiographical song-cycle Ubuntu: We are one family by Mary Alice Rich for the Voces Intimae Recital Series (Dallas, TX). Forbay reprised the role of Velmyra in the modern opera Wading Home at the 2017 Women's Music Festival in Columbus, MS, for the Voces Intimae Recital Series in Dallas, TX, the 2017 TEXOMA NATS Artist Series, and on a national tour of South Africa in 2018. She has performed Afrikaans Art Song Recitals with Dr. Stephen Pierce (piano) at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music (Los Angeles), the 2018 NATS National Conference, and at Furman University in 2023.
Reviewer Scott Cantrell praised Forbay's performanceof Velmyra in the Dallas World Premier of Wading home by composer Mary Alice Rich, calling Forbay " a drama-queen Velmyra, (with) a soprano that bloomed and blazed thrillingly on high”.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
When Forbay reprised the role of tragic heroine Violetta Valery with the Gauteng Opera (Johannesburg, South Africa). Her performance was hailed a "triumph!" Paul Boekkooi noted:
"It requires a courageous soprano to portray a completely well-rounded Violetta. The demands made in Act I are totally different from those in Acts II and III.
Bronwen Forbay's musical presentation encompassed all these requirements – from high coloratura to heavily dramatic moments. Her interpretation was magnificent, full of expressive power, with a varied timbre spectrum. Worth more than gold, is a person who can make you believe in the character - even in her extremely elegant collapse and death at the end.”*NEWS24 Online
*Originally in Afrikaans.
Forbay maintains an extensive concert repertoire of standard and modern works including Bach’s B Minor Mass, BWV Cantatas 51, 202 (Wedding) and 209, Haydn’s The Creation and Lord Nelson Mass, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart's Mass in c minor and Requiem - performed on tour in Venice, Verona and Vicenza (Italy) with Varna International. Forbay performed the Soprano Soloist in South African composer Phelelani Mnomiya’s Inqaisivele weAfrika (Zulu) arranged for four soloists, chorus, and orchestra, during the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. She was also the Soprano Soloist along with highly-celebrated South Africans Sibongile Khumalo (mezzo-soprano), and Fikile Mvingelwa (baritone), in modern South African composer Philip Miller’s REwind Cantata for Voice Tape and Testimony (based on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Hearings) at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England. Additional appearances as a featured Soloist include performances with the Alabama, Indianapolis, Brazos Valley, Waco, and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras, the Santa Fe Pro Musica (Baroque) Orchestra, Cincinnati Baroque, CCM Philharmonia, Manhattan School of Music Percussion Orchestra, Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Successful in several international competitions, Forbay won 2nd prize and the Audience Choice Award in Opera Birmingham's 2002 Voice Competition (US). She won the Southern Methodist University’s Concerto Competition (Voice Category) in 2004, and the 1st UNISA Southern African Voice Competion in 2005. In 2006, she won 3rd prize in both the CCM Corbett Competition and in the 5th UNISA International Voice Competition. Previous winners of the UNISA International Voice Competition include sopranos Marilyn Mims and Renée Fleming. Forbay also won the SAMRO (South African Music Rights Organization) Award for Most Promising South African Opera Singer that year. In 2007, Forbay was awarded both the Catherine Filene Shouse Career Grant for Singers from the Wolf Trap Opera Company and the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music (a prestigious national South African award whose recipients include internationally acclaimed soprano Pretty Yende). This achievement led to Forbay being the featured soloist in a Gala Concert with the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra on the Grahamstown National Arts Festival's main-stage program. As part of the festival, she also performed the Soprano Soloist in Haydn's The Creation with world-renowned bass-baritone, Simon Estes, highly-regarded American tenor and Furman University Music Department Chair, Randall Umstead, and the Yale Alumni Chorus.
An avid recitalist, Forbay has performed with world-renowned pianists Steven Blier, South African Steinway Artist, Christopher Duigan, and highly accomplished US based South African pianist Dr. Stephen Pierce on faculty at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. In 2012, Forbay performed Afrikaans Art Songs in recital for the American Cathedral in Paris (France) Les Arts Georges V Series. She has presented Afrikaans Art Song lecture recitals for the 2013 TEXOMA NATS Conference’s Artist Series, 2014 College Music Society’s National Conference (St. Louis, MO), and 2018 National NATS Conference (Las Vegas, NV) with Stephen Pierce (piano) and Christian Bester (baritone). In 2021, Forbay served on a panel of presenters including former NATS presidents Karen Brunssen and Carole Blankenship, current NATS president Diana Allen, Executive Director of NATS, Allen Henderson, and esteemed colleagues from around the world in a presentation on Advancing International Connectivity Among Voice Teachers at the NATS National Conference, as well as at the International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT) in Vienna, Austria.
A highly sought-after adjudicator and masterclass clinician, Forbay’s South African voice students won the 1st and 2nd prizes in the 2010 UKZN Classical Performers Competition and have been semi-finalists in the ATKV Musiq voice competition. In the US, her Classical voice students won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes in 2019, 2020 and 2021 in the TMTA (Texas Music Teachers Association) Young Artist Voice Contests, 1st prize in the 2018 Texoma NATS Hall Johnson Voice Competition, as well as the 1st and 2nd prizes respectively in the 2021 DFW NATS Student Auditions Adult category and Musical Theater 5A category. Her students have been winners in South Carolina NATS, Mid-Atlantic NATS, and many have advanced to nationals. Forbay’s Musical Theater students have performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, and Broadway National Tours.
Dr. Forbay is an Associate Professor of Voice at Furman University in Greenville, SC. She was formerly an Associate Professor of Music (Voice) at the McLennan Community College in Waco, TX, where she also taught Lyric Diction (Italian, German, French and English) and Applied Voice. Forbay has served on faculties at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Sam Houston State University, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, her alma mater. She holds a B. Mus. from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa), an M. Mus. from the Manhattan School of Music, an Artist Certificate from the Southern Methodist University, and a DMA in Voice Performance with a cognate in opera stage directing from the University of Cincinnati, CCM. Dr. Forbay served as the TMTA Voice Contest Chair from 2018-2021. She was a board member and Treasurer for arts agency Creative Waco (Waco, TX) and currently serves on the board of the Bruce Foote Memorial Scholarship Foundation affiliated with the Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX). Forbay is President-elect of Furman University’s Black Faculty and Staff Association, is a founding member of the South Africa Chapter, NATS for which she serves as Treasurer, and is a member of the NATS International Advisory Committee.
Two articles on Afrikaans Art Song Literature co-authored with Dr. Christian Bester were published in the Journal of Singing, Volume 8, March/April 2022. “Afrikaans Art Song Literature: Translation and Performance Guide” also co-authored with Dr. Christian Bester will be published by Oxford University Press in 2024.