TEMPLE HAMMEN
Soprano
ABOUT
American soprano, Temple Hammen has been recognized for her "stunning operatic singing” (I Care If You Listen) and her ability to act "vividly, providing character through her body expression." (The Boston Musical Intelligencer) Her versatile instrument and dedication to performing new works have allowed her to explore and perform a wide range of repertoire, spanning Baroque through 21st-century music.
Hammen was most recently named a finalist in the Palm Springs Opera Guild Competition taking place in December 2024. She also received the Encouragement Award at the Metropolitan Opera's Laffont Competition in the San Diego District.
In the 2023-2024 season, Temple was a Vocal Fellow at Tanglewood Music Center. A high point of her Tanglewood fellowship, Ms. Hammen performed Tania León’s Atwood Songs as a part of the Festival of Contemporary Music.
-The Boston Musical Intelligencer
(Tania León, Atwood Songs)
"...Hammen acted vividly, providing character through her body expression; this reviewer would love to see her in a lead opera role."
Other notable concerts at Tanglewood include Kaija Saariaho’s The Tempest Songbook with Chamber Orchestra, Mozart Opera Scenes with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra singing, Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte. While at Tanglewood, she worked closely with renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw as well as Randall Scarlata, Jacob Greenberg, and Stefan Asbury.
Before Tanglewood, Ms. Hammen won the "Sparks & Wary Cries songSLAM" competition at National Sawdust with pianist Danny Zelibor, composer Jonathan Wyatt, and poet James Danner.
In 2022, Temple was a Marc and Eva Stern Fellow at SongFest where she performed in Graham Johnson’s Schubert-Liederabend and the world premiere of Sheila Silver's If Trees Could Talk. Following SongFest, she sang her role debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Annina in La Traviata with the South Bend Opera and Symphony Orchestra.
Temple graduated from Mannes School of Music with her Master’s of Music under the tutelage of Diana Soviero. Ms. Hammen was slated to make her Lincoln Center debut as Voice 2 in Steve Reich’s Tehillim and perform Dafne in La Dafne conducted by Geoff McDonald. These productions were sadly canceled due to Covid-19. At Mannes, she sang scenes from Le Nozze di Figaro as Susanna, Elisir D ́Amore as Adina, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte as Pamina, and Verdi’s Rigoletto as Gilda. As a part of the Mannes Sounds Festival, she was seen as a soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
Temple has been featured in numerous masterclasses with highly regarded musicians, including Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Nicole Cabell, Margo Garrett, and Tony Arnold.
During the 2021 season, Ms. Hammen was a Semi-Finalist in the Orpheus Vocal Competition. She was invited to sing at the “Composed by Women Festival” at Indiana University, a festival dedicated to exclusively performing and exploring works composed by women. She performed works by Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, and Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová. Hammen was featured in On Site Opera’s virtual production during the pandemic of The Beauty that Still Remains: Diaries in Song by Marcus Paus. Temple was also a resident artist at Classic Lyric Arts in France.
Temple received her Bachelor of Music from Westminster Choir College where she toured and performed with the awarded Westminster Choir. During that time, she had an ongoing fellowship with Spoleto Festival USA where she spent three summers. At Spoleto, she was honored to be a soloist in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. She also performed in the US Premiere of Helmut Lachenmann’s The Little Match Girl under John Kennedy. Other notable works at Westminster include the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Filia in Carissimi's Jeptha, and the title role in Iolanthe.
Temple has a passion for the German language and studied at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin where she received a Deutsches Sprachzertifikat and lived in Berlin.
