BIOGRAPHY
In the 2022/23 season Marieke stars in the title role of Béatrice in Béatrice et Bénédict with Shakespeare Opera Theater and performs in the world premiere of Iceland at LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club with Overtone Industries. With Bronx Opera she performs in The Messiah and sings the lead role of Liza Elliott in an outreach production of Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark. She performs the role of Giunone in La Calisto with Mannes Opera and Speaker for the Greek chorus workshop of AGAMEMNON by David T. Little with Theater for a New Audience. She premieres a new piece with the Mosaic Composer's Collective and performs with the Academy of Fortepiano Performance, the Career Bridges Opera Awards Gala and American Friends of the Donizetti Opera Festival's masterclass with Lawrence Brownlee. Marieke was named winner of the DePaul Concerto Competition with her 2021 original song cycle "Never Again", based on poetry by Valentine Kizito.
In the 2021/22 season Marieke made her radio debut with South Africa's RSG radio broadcast of the Salon Music Christmas Concert with Brooklyn Theatre TV and Gauteng Philharmonic Orchestra. With Mannes Opera she performed in Huang Ruo's Dr Sun Yat-Sen and covered the role of Jutta in Grace McLean's In The Green. She joined the International Contemporary Ensemble's Ensemble Evolution 2022 and performed with Really Spicy Opera and the Art Song Preservation Society of New York. Marieke won the Alsop Foundation Entrepreneurship Award for performing arts and was finalist of the Boosey & Hawkes International Sing Finzi competition and Concorso Internazionale Città di Alessandria.
In 2020/21 Marieke made her role debuts as Dido in Dido and Aeneas with DePaul University and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Supernova Opera. She appeared in concerts with Johannesburg Opera. Marieke was interviewed on the ETV Morning show about her composition Born of Angels as an Emerging Artist with the Windybrow Arts Center. 2021 saw the premiere of Marieke's first song cycle Never Again, based on works by the Kenyan poet Valentine Kizito, which was featured on the Lieder Laboratory podcast.
Past roles include Tamara in Rubinstein's The Demon with Russian Opera Workshop, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with DePaul University, and Madame Herz in Der Schauspieldirektor with the Austrian American Mozart Academy. Marieke has won first prize at the Charleston International Music Competition and second prize at the Hal Leonard Vocal Competition. She was a George and Phyllis Muccianti Vocal Scholarship winner at Casa Italia in Chicago. She has performed in concerts and recitals in the US, Italy, Austria and South Africa.
Marieke is a graduate student at Mannes School of Music in New York, studying Vocal Performance and Impact Entrepreneurship. She earned her BM Vocal Performance degree from DePaul University in Chicago and graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy high school as a Motion Picture Arts major. Originally from Pretoria, South Africa, Marieke is an advocate for Pan-African music and is currently launching an e-commerce marketplace for Pan-African music through the US-Nigerian nonprofit Àkójọpọ̀. Marieke is also a founding board member of the Canadian queer and drag opera company Opéra Queens.
