Hailed as having a "juicy" and "colorful" tone as well as a "flair for comic mugging", mezzo-soprano Jennifer Blades is a versatile performer, equally at home in opera, cabaret, oratorio and art song. After a very busy and versatile 2013-2014 season, Ms. Blades will begin the fall with a reprise of her role as Julia Child in Lee Hoiby's opera monologue Bon Appetit at the Cabaret at Germano's on September 19. Following that she directs Massenet's Cendrillon for Peabody Opera. Ms. Blades will return again to Germano's in December for a reprisal of her holiday show The Sweetest of Nights and on February 14 for a brand new Valentine's Day show. Opera credits include Rosanna (The Barber of Baltimore), Julia Child (Bon Appetit), Alisa (Lucia di Lammermoor), Second Lady, (The Magic Flute), Mrs. Herring (Albert Herring), Public Opinion (Orpheus in the Underworld), Arminda (La finta giardiniera), the Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte), Bianca (The Rape of Lucretia), the Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas), Narciso (Agrippina), Second Nursemaid (Street Scene), Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and Valencienne (The Merry Widow) for companies such as Opera Vivente, Lyric Opera Baltimore, Wolf Trap Opera, Baltimore's Artscape, and Opera AACC. Ms. Blades has also performed Ruth in Pirates of Penzance, The Duchess of Plaza-Toro and Tessa in The Gondoliers, and Mad Margaret in Ruddigore with the Young Victorian Theatre. An avid cabaret singer, Ms. Blades has performed her original show, My Funny Valentine, at Don't Tell Mama in New York with Rick Jensen on piano and Lina Koutrakos as director, at the Mid City Theatre in New Orleans, and at The Cabaret at Germano's in Baltimore. Her most recent cabaret show, Here in the Dark, has been performed at The Cabaret at Germano's as well as at Davenport's Cabaret Room in Chicago. Ms. Blades has been a featured soloist with the Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Frederick Symphony Orchestra, Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Handel Choir of Baltimore, the Harford Choral Society, and the Bach Concert Series. Oratorio credits include Verdi's Messa di Requiem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mozart's Grand Mass in C and Requiem, the Bach Magnificat, Handel's Messiah, the Durufle� Requiem, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, and several Bach Cantatas. Ms. Blades received a Masters of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory where she is a faculty member and stage director with the Opera Department. She teaches Cabaret Styles and Acting for Opera, and directs the Outreach Program's touring productions of Ariel's Tempest, Papageno, Hansel & Gretel, and Little Red Riding Hood. For the Peabody Opera she has directed L'incoronazione di Poppea, Before Breakfast, Amy Beth Kirsten's Ophelia Forever, Sokolovic's Svadba - Wedding, Postcard from Morocco, This Is the Rill Speaking, Trouble in Tahiti, L'enfant et les sortileges, and Conrad Susa's Transformations, as well as several of the Opera Etudes productions. Other directing credits include The Mikado, Orpheus in the Underworld, and a double bill of The Telephone and The Medium for Opera AACC. She is also a member of the voice faculty at Anne Arundel Community College and has taught acting/improv for summer opera camps including Little Patuxent Opera Institute, Lyric Opera Baltimore's Opera Camp, and Camp OV. Ms. Blades is the recipient of a 2014 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Solo Performance in Classical Music.