By Janet Wilson
Her repertoire covers opera, lieder, jazz, contemporary classical works and even Broadway melodies, and she's the recipient of many awards, but there's no trace of the diva about American soprano Dawn Upshaw.
She sounds as unaffected, thoughtful and warm as a well-known friend as we chat about her career, milestones in her life and her upcoming tour of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. ''I'm always eager to get back to Australia, but I'd appreciate it if you could get the temperature down a bit,'' she says, contrasting our recent heatwave with the freezing weather that has just swept the US.
Soprano singer Dawn Upshaw.
The previous time that she toured here with the ACO was also in summer, in February 2009, when she sang works by Bartok, Golijov, Dowland, Schubert and Schumann.
This time, when the tour kicks off in Canberra on February 7 at Llewellyn Hall, she'll introduce a new work written for her by her friend and colleague, Maria Schneider, with the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser used in a nine-song cycle titled Winter Morning Walks - a performance that has already earned her a Grammy award this week for best classical vocal solo.
She'll also sing Grieg's wistful Solveig's Song and Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara's Die Liebenden: 1. Liebes-Lied.
Upshaw doesn't see her musical diversity as a trip along a musical vector.
''No, I don't see a straight line anywhere,'' she says. ''It's more adding on to the structure of my musical life. I don't see myself so much on a path as exploring.'' Born in Nashville, Tennessee, the daughter of a minister in the United Church of Christ, she felt that music must have some kind of message.
''My musical upbringing was centred around the civil rights movement, and I grew up listening to recordings of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. I think the message was that music really could inspire people and move the world so much that things could really become better.
''I want to be engaged in the world that I'm living in, and I think that's what's stirred my interest in particular in working with composers. I really feel that I'm jumping right in with music of my own time.'' Upshaw fell in love with Schneider's music when a friend introduced her to a recording of Schneider's Concert in the Garden.
She started going to Jazz Standard in New York with her daughter around Thanksgiving each year to listen to the music.
She and Schneider had some common bonds: they both came from the Midwest and both had been through chemotherapy.
''I thought maybe she could write something for me,'' Upshaw says.
''After the first piece that she wrote for me with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, I immediately wanted her to write another piece, because I thought there was really something coming.'' Upshaw had a date to play with the ACO at the Ojai Festival in California in 2011, and that's where Winter Morning Walks had its premiere, with three of Schneider's jazz players - Scott Robinson, Jay Anderson and Frank Kimbrough - joining the orchestra.
They are also coming to Australia to join the forthcoming ACO tour.
''They improvise,'' Upshaw says, ''and the combination works really well. It's just a beautiful piece, and using the poetry of Ted Kooser seems just right. The marriage of music and text is very moving to me.'' In 2012, the ACO undertook its 52nd international tour, including debuts in Chicago and Toronto with Upshaw and Teddy Tahu Rhodes as guest artists.
In New York, Upshaw recorded Winter Morning Walks with the orchestra; that recording won three Grammys.
From a peripheral interest for Upshaw, new music has come to take up more and more of her musical calendar. ''I feel very happy to be working on this music now,'' she says, ''and especially with the colleagues that I have.''
Her interest in the music of Scandinavian composers really began many years ago when she met the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen in Salzburg.
''We became friends and then I was introduced to Kaija Saariaho, who had gone to school with Esa-Pekka. There's a Finnish connection with the ACO, too, isn't there? You have Satu Vanska and Timo-Veikko Valve. I'd never sung any of Rautavaara's music before and I was very thrilled that the ACO suggested some music by this Finnish composer. I love this piece.''
Three orchestral pieces will also feature on this ACO tour - selections from St John's Book of Alleged Dances by John Adams, Grieg's Holberg Suite and Elgar's Introduction and Allegro.
Although she began her career as an opera singer performing many roles at The Met in New York, today Upshaw says that she enjoys doing staged versions, ''but I have no desire to hop back into full opera productions''.
''The ACO is certainly one of my favourite orchestras to work with. They play with such energy. It's really unique. I'm really intrigued with the Rautavaara work, and I want to see how Australian audiences will like this gift of Maria Schneider's work.''