Born in Jerusalem, soprano Hila Plitmann has quickly become a glittering jewel on the international music scene, known worldwide for her astonishing musicianship and gossamer voice. She regularly premieres works by today's leading composers while maintaining a vibrant and extraordinarily diverse professional life in film music, musical theatre, and songwriting.
The Los Angeles Times calls her a performer with “tremendous vocal and physical graceâ€, while Entertainment Today raves, “Plitmann has a vocal instrument that is simply unreal in its beauty." For her extensive soundtrack work as a soloist for the Hollywood blockbuster The DaVinci Code, CNN says: “ Plitmann's glissandi sail above the petty pulpits of earthly doctrine with an ethereal ease that argues for Plitmann's pairing with [Kathleen] Battle or Dawn Upshaw."
In recent years she has worked with many of today's leading conductors, including Kurt Masur, Robert Spano, Marin Alsop, Esa Pekka Salonen, Andrew Litton, and Steven Sloane. She has appeared as a headliner with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New Israeli Opera and numerous other orchestras and ensembles in the U.S. and abroad.
In constant demand as a singer of new and contemporary classical music, she has recently appeared as the soloist of several world premieres, including Paul Revere’s Ride with the Atlanta Symphony, written by Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Del Tredici ; Esa Pekka Salonen’s Wing on Wing with The Los Angeles Philharmonic, the composer conducting; Mr. Tambourine Man by Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winning composer John Corigliano with The Minnesota Orchestra; and Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby, a song cycle written for her by Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis.
In 2007 she originated the role of Exstasis in Eric Whitacre's groundbreaking electro-musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings. Ms. Plitmann sang, acted, danced and fought in long martial arts battles nightly for a seven week sold-out run, a tour-de force performance that prompted Backstage West to call her, "brilliant, eliciting strong empathy and singing gorgeously", and Theatre Mania to declare she "fights like a warrior and sings like the angel she portrays." For her work in the show she received nominations for Best Actress in a Musical from the Los Angeles Ovation Awards and The L.A. Ticketholder Awards.
Ms. Plitmann is accumulating an impressive catalogue of professional recordings, appearing on the Decca, Telarc, Naxos, CRI and Disney labels. The Da Vinci Code Soundtrack (Decca) was a worldwide bestseller, spending several weeks on the Billboard charts. Both Paul Revere's Ride (Telarc), and The Da Vinci Code received Grammy nominations.
Upcoming engagements include performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin conducting; the Altanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Spano at Carnegie Hall; and a concert version
of John Adams’ Nixon in China with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the composer conducting.
Ms. Plitmann received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees with high honors from The Juilliard School of Music, and has been awarded the coveted Sony ES Prize for her outstanding contribution to the vocal arts. She has a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do.
