About

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Aliana de la Guardia is a classical singer who specializes in contemporary performance techniques and repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is also an actor, voice teacher, and producer lauded by Stuff Magazine as “an anomalous player on the Boston music scene.”

The Cuban-American performer began training in theater and film at age fifteen in her native New Jersey. She moved to Boston to complete professional studies in voice and opera at The Boston Conservatory under Sara Goldstein, William Cotton, Sanford Sylvan, and Rebecca Folsom (current).

As an avid performer and advocate for the performance of New Music she has performed composers such as: Berio, Birtwistle, Gorecki, Harvey, Kurtág, Sciarrino, and Webern, as well as collaborating with many local composers with the Ludovico Ensemble, Firebird Ensemble, White Rabbit, and The Boston Conservatory New Music Festival.

In 2009 de la Guardia founded Dirty Paloma with a mission to engage and expose innovative artists, and to explore intimate programming with an emphasis on works for small ensemble. This also marked the beginning of her collaboration with baritone Jonathan Nussman in a series of recitals, which saw the world premier of 3 new works by Boston area composers, in concerts whose programming spanned repertoire from Baroque to Contemporary. The Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote: “Aliana de la Guardia is to be commended for inventing Dirty Paloma and for presenting such a stunning first performance.”

She is one of the founding members and General Manager of Guerilla Opera, an Ensemble-in-Residence at The Boston Conservatory with a mission to foster a new repertoire of progressive and accessible operas written specifically for them and perform them in intimate theatrical settings without a conductor. She has co-produced 6 operas and premiered 5 roles written specifically for her including: We Are Sons (June Jackson), Rumpelstiltskin (Title), “Estelle” in the operatic adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit by Andy Vores, “Sarah Palin/Diane Sawyer” in Curtis K. Hughes’s Say It Ain’t So, Joe, which received national attention in 2009 and will be recording this summer, and most recently reprised her role of “Dog” in Rudolf Rojahn’s Heart of a Dog, which she premiered in 2007. This new production of Heart of a Dog traveled to the University of Memphis in February 2011, where she lead a workshop in contemporary performance techniques for classical vocalists.

Operagasm writes: “De la Guardia’s work in new opera is proof of the genre’s viable potential as entertainment. By working directly with composers, she is a part of the creative process of inventing new styles and techniques for singing. Her contemporary music projects are able to connect young audiences with music about the cultural fascinations of our times.”

Her experience extends to traditional opera theater as well. She “Triumphed” (Scene and Heard International) in Granite State Opera’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata (Flora) and was deemed “Likable and pleasing” (The Boston Globe) as Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Helena). Additional credits include: L’Enfant et les Sortilége (La Princesse) with Metro West Opera, Carmen (Frasquita) with Operesque Classical Concerts (NYC), Rape of Lucretia (Female Chorus), With Blood, With Ink (Countess de Paredes), and Akhnaten (Meretaten).

Additional performances with: Boston Lyric Opera, New England Philharmonic, Canton Choral Society, Wellesley Choral Society, Harvard Group for New Music, Boston Stage Company, and Summertime Players (NJ). She is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).

For booking information or press kit materials contact management@alianadelaguardia.com.