Biography
Out of 4,000 entries, mezzo-soprano Stephania Romaniuk won the highest honour, the "Rose Bowl", in the 2015 Calgary Performing Arts Festival. She is the Grand Prix winner of the First International Competition of Ukrainian Retro Music, held in L'viv, Ukraine in 2015, and represented the Intermountain Region in the 2016 NATSAA National Semi-Finals in Chicago. Summer 2016 closed on a high note with Ms Romaniuk performing Ukrainian folk songs and popular standards in the 2,500-seat Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium as the opening act for the best-selling Ukrainian recording artist of all time and national heroine, Ruslana.
The 2016-17 season sees Ms Romaniuk returning to the Cowtown Opera Company as a roster artist and continuing her arts and humanitarian advocacy work in local recitals. She makes her debut as guest artist with Toronto's Prolisok Ukrainian Choir and the Bow Valley Chorus (Mozart Requiem) and returns to the Calgary Bach Society (Duruflé Requiem).
In the 2015-2016 season, Ms Romaniuk gave debuts with the Calgary Civic Symphony (Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - conductor Rolf Bertsch), Calgary Youth Orchestra (Scriabin's First Symphony - conductor Edmond Agopian), and in an educational concert for youth with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Alfie and the Lost Treasure - conductor Adam Johnson). Ms Romaniuk also debuted as a soloist with the Vesnivka Choir (Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival - conductor Kvitka Kondracki) and in recital for Calgary Opera's summer music festival "Opera in the Village" and Calgary's Mountain View Connection, a recital series dedicated to song and chamber music. Also this year, she made her mezzo-soprano debut with the Calgary Bach Society singing Erbarme Dich.
Ms Romaniuk has attended the Bel Canto Institute in Florence, Italy, OperaWorks in Los Angeles, and Vancouver International Song Insitute. She received a Jacqueline Desmarais Scholarship for Young Canadian Opera Singers to work with Christa Ludwig, Elly Ameling, Robert Holl, Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles, and Rudolf Jansen in the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden-bei-Wien, Austria.
Concerned about the passive listening habits pervading modern audiences, Ms Romaniuk founded the website howtolistentoclassicalmusic.com, which encourages and enables audience members to take greater responsibility for their music-listening experience.
Ms Romaniuk currently studies with contralto Heather Meyers at the Vocal Arts Institute of Alberta and in the Advanced Performance Program at the Mount Royal Conservatory in Calgary, Canada. She is an alumna of the Eastman School of Music.