A post by Peter Jordens: Eva Breukink reports for NTR Caribisch Netwerk on Imara Thomas, an Aruban-Dutch soprano based in Germany.
[…] Imara was born in Amsterdam but is proud of her Aruban background. She comes from a musically gifted family. Guided by her aunt Gloria Connor, young Imara advanced from church choir and television appearances to the world of classical music. She was only 12 years old when she sang with the Amsterdam Promenade Concert during a Christmas concert in De Doelen in Rotterdam. “A choir of 150 people, the orchestra, and the capacity audience — It was amazing.” She was sold immediately: she wanted to become a professional singer.
[…] After training at the Maastricht Conservatory, a difficult period followed. “I received a lot of compliments,” she says, “from major impresarios too. But they couldn’t do much for me.” Imara Thomas relied on her own talent and knowhow. After her studies, she built a network as a freelancer. She toured for a while with André Rieu’s orchestra, one of the most popular orchestras because of the way they make classical music attractive to a wide audience. […]
In 2015, she finally got the opportunity of a lifetime: she became a soprano at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, where she now also lives. It is one of the larger opera houses in Germany. She sings in opera productions of all the great classical masters: Verdi, Puccini, Wagner. But she still felt an itch: “I really missed the music and culture from the region of my origin. It is part of who I am,” says Imara. She continued to look for her ‘Puccini in the Caribbean’.
These are her Caribbean classics: ‘Abo so’ by Aruba’s Padú Lampe (1920-2019), ‘Encuentro’ by Curaçao’s Wim Statius Muller (1930-2019), and ‘Siboney’ by Cuba’s Ernesto Lecuona. This is the music that touches her heart, that she lives and breathes. In October 2023 she had the opportunity to perform these songs again in the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Her greatest inspiration is the late Cuban soprano Xiomara Alfaro (1930-2018). That Caribbean rhythm, that way of singing opened up another new world for her, one in which she now recognized herself. This is her culture, she says.
Imara Thomas also has a dream. She wants to bring the two different worlds of classical music together. “I am thinking of a solo performance in a large stadium. Something along the lines of the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli, to tell the story of my journey, from Padú to Puccini.”
Read the complete original article in Dutch at https://caribischnetwerk.ntr.nl/2023/12/27/operazangeres-imara-thomas-mijn-verhaal-ligt-in-de-caribbean. Translation by Peter Jordens.
Follow Imara Thomas on:
https://www.facebook.com/imarathomas
https://www.instagram.com/imara_thomas
https://www.youtube.com/@Imarathomas
Watch her recent performance of ‘Siboney’ and ‘Encunetro’ at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4b9OT0aqXg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIvcdEETHzE.
A post by Peter Jordens: Eva Breukink reports for NTR Caribisch Netwerk on Imara Thomas, an Aruban-Dutch soprano based in Germany. Imara was born in Amsterdam but is proud of her Aruban background. She comes from a musically gifted family. Guided by her aunt Gloria Connor, young Imara advanced from church choir and television
