Praised by the Washington Post for her “gorgeous singing,” Bridgette Gan is quickly establishing herself as a vibrant interpreter of opera, concert and crossover works. Ms. Gan had the honor of performing as the guest soloist for Wheeling Symphony’s Music Under the Stars concert, the nation’s first live concert with orchestra following the general shutdown of performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This season, Bridgette returned to Opera Idaho to make her role debut as Female Soldier in The Falling and the Rising and toured her signature holiday concert Let's Duet: Happy Holidays with baritone Scott Johnson at various professional venues across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Additionally, this spring she will be featured alongside her Vocalis Consort colleagues in their reprisal of their signature concert "Alive" at the Longy School of Music.
In the 2022/2023 season, Bridgette returned to the Wheeling Symphony twice, first for their Soundbites series concert: A Night at the Italian Opera and then as the featured soprano soloist for their Forces of Nature concert where she performed Samuel Barber’s beloved Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Additionally last season, Ms. Gan joined the Choirs and Wind Ensemble at The College of New Jersey as the soprano soloist for their spring performance of Carmina Burana, and she returned to her Alma Mater, Rider University to perform in two recitals, Alive: Songs by Living Artists and Poulenc and Friends with the Vocalis Consort, an innovative art song ensemble of which she and her husband, baritone Scott Johnson are founding members.
In the 2021/2022 season, Bridgette made her role and house debut as Valencienne in The Merry Widow with Opera Idaho, and presented recitals with the Federation of the Art Song and Vocalis Consort. As a contemporary crossover artist, Bridgette was recently featured on the single, Libre (which she co-wrote and produced) with Zumba choreographer and performer RAF MC. Other recent highlights include her company debut with Utah Festival Opera as the Soprano Soloist for Oratorio from the Book of Mormon, Sharon in Terrence McNally’s Master Class, and the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, for which Deseret News labeled her “the one to listen to.” She made her role debut as Norina in Don Pasquale with Opera Orlando, where she has also appeared as Musetta in La Bohème, a guest soloist for their 2018 Gala, and the “vocally and comically sparkling” (Orlando Sentinel) Bethany Squills in their modernized production of Mozart’s The Impresario, and debuted her Adina in L’elisir d’amore with St. Petersburg Opera.
Ms. Gan made her mainstage debut with Santa Fe Opera as Lila in the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain, a recording of which is available on Pentatone Records and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. A former resident artist with Palm Beach Opera, she has been seen there as Stella in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Marie in La fille du regiment, with Edge Media Network calling her performance “a tour de-force…vocally beautiful and consistent with a rich tone and sparkling high notes… a great star turn for a young singer who has a world of potential in front of her."
She has also appeared with the Pacific Symphony as Papagena in The Magic Flute, the Center for Contemporary Opera as Jackie Kennedy in a reading of Chandler Carter’s opera Bobby, and Central City Opera as Frasquita in Carmen, Venus and Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld, Madeline/Isabel in The Face on the Barroom Floor, and Celie in Signor Deluso. In concert, she has recently appeared with the U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra for Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, the South Florida Symphony for their And the Tony Goes to… concert tour, Toledo Symphony for their Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration concert tour, and was featured at the Newport Music Festival.
Bridgette has won top prizes from the Gerda Lissner Foundation, Central City Opera, the Licia Albanese Puccini Competition, the Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition, Opera Index Vocal Competition, the Violetta DuPont Vocal Competition, the Philadelphia Orchestra Albert M. Greenfield Competition, the National Opera Association Voice Competition, the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts, and was a Grant Nominee for the Sara Tucker Award. She has been an apprentice with Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Central City Opera, and Ash Lawn Opera.
As a voice educator, Bridgette is humbled and honored to work with artists of all ages and levels of experience across the world. She studied Voice Performance and Pedagogy at Westminster Choir College (B.M.) and the University of Maryland (M.M) and has continued her vocal training at the Westminster Vocal Pedagogy Institute and the Somatic Voicework LoVetri Institute. In addition to maintaining her thriving private voice studio in Ewing NJ, Bridgette is proud to be a music fellow and International voice instructor with Broadway Arts Education, where she teaches virtual private and group lessons to students from Shanti Bhavan Project in Bangalore, India. Click here to learn more about The Johnson Voice Studio.