Praised by critics for her vocal abilities, artistic sensibilities, and captivating stage presence, Italian-Israeli Soprano Mayan Goldenfeld is based in Bielefeld, Germany, where she is engaged at Stadttheater Bielefeld as an ensemble member.
During the 2022/23 season, Mayan returned to the stage of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with the role of Despina in Cosi fan tutte with the world-renowned early music ensemble La Petite Bande. As a member of Theater Bielefeld's one-of-a-kind studio program for that season, Mayan has made numerous debuts in roles such as Natalia in Leoncavallo's Zaza, Ida in Die Fledermaus, 4th Blumenmädchen in Parsifal, the leading role of She in the world premiere of At Your Doorstep and lastly her acting debut in Peter Kastenmüller's adaptation of the 2018 Deutsche Buchpreis winning novel Herkunft by Saša Stanišić.
Alongside her performances in operas and theater plays, Mayan continued her work as a concert singer with Bach's Johannes Passion and the New Year's Concert, both in the Rudolf-Oetker Halle with the Bielefelder Philharmoniker.
Mayan has already sung under the baton of conductors such as Sigiswald Kuijken, Alexis Kossenko, Werner Ehrhardt, Alexander Kalajdzic, Michael Hofstetter, Michael Schneider, and Andrea de Carlo and with ensembles and orchestras such as La Petite Bande, Bielefelder Philharmoniker, Neumeyer Consort, HIP Frankfurt, and the Camerata Villa Musica. She has appeared on many important stages all over Europe including, among others, The Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Her festival appearances include Maifestspiele in Wiesbaden, Schwetzingen Festspiele, Grandezze e Maraviglie Festival, Festival Barocco Alessandro Stradella, I Concerti di Euterpe, Prague Early Music Festival and Koblenz International Guitar Festival.
Highlights from previous seasons include her performances as a soloist in Bach's Matthäus Passion at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Erice in Cavalli's L'Ormindo at Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the title role in Stradella's La Circe in Teatro Torlonia in Rome, Sangaride in Lully's Atys with Akademie Versailles, Galatea in Acis and Galatea with Summer opera Tel Aviv, Vespina in L'infedelta Delusa with La Petite Bande, Dorilla in La Serva Scaltra with La Petite Bande, her debut in the Schwetzinger Festspiele singing the titular role in scenes from Jommelli's Didone Abbandonata in a concert that was broadcast by SWR2.
Other operatic roles performed include Drusilla, Amore and Damigella in L'incoronazione di Poppea, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Soeur Constance in Dialogues des Carmelites, Frasquita in Carmen, The titular role in Cendrillon, The dew Fairy in Hansel und Gretel and Despina in Cosi fan tutte.
Mayan is a Jubilee Ambassador of the Bärenreiter-Verlag in addition to being the 2022 Bärenreiter Prize winner at the Händel Competition in Göttingen, a prize she received with her early music duo Sull'onde. She is also the 1st prize winner of the Buchman-Mehta Vocal Competition, finalist of the Froville International Baroque Competition, and prize winner of the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg competition.
She is the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and scholarships such the Deutsche Orchester Stiftung, The Israeli Association of Operatic Arts, the Buchholtz Foundation, the Cini Foundation, the Berlin Song Festival Scholarship, the AICF excellence scholarship, and the Buchman-Heiman Scholarship.
As part of her training, Mayan participated in numerous international masterclasses such as Fondation Royaumont Rossini Formation (2019), Fondazione Cini Accademia Vivaldi (2019), IVAI Tel Aviv (2018), La Petite Bande Academy (2017), The London Song Festival (2017) The Berlin Song Festival (2017), LidalNorth Oslo (2016, 2014) and Songfest at Colburn (2015) with acclaimed musicians such as Chen Reiss, Andreas Scholl, Gemma Bertagnolli, Kevin Murphy, Martin Katz, Sophie Daneman, Caroline Dowdle, Graham Johnson, Margo Garrett, and Lucy Shelton.
Mayan holds a Master of Music degree from the Brooklyn College Conservatory where she studied in the studio of Patricia McCaffery and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Buchman-Mehta School of Music where she studied in the class of Efrat Ben Nun and most recently she has graduated the first Advance Certificate Program in early music at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where she coached under Prof. Doerthe Maria Sandmann.
During her studies both in the US and in Israel she performed roles such as Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica, Madama Cortese in Il Viaggio a Reims, Annina in La Traviata, Beth in The Tender Land, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Amor in Orfeo ed Euridice, and Sandman and Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel.
In concert repertoire, she performed the soprano solo in Poulenc's Gloria, the soprano solo in Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, and with the BMSM orchestra in a selection of songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
Mayan is an avid singer of art songs and has performed in art song recitals in Berlin, Kiel, Koblenz, Tel Aviv and New York city. Together with her long time collaborator guitarist Guy Woodcock she formed duo Kolmeitar, exploring rarely performed art songs written for voice and plucked instruments, as well as creating their own arrangements of canonic art song repertoire. Their duo has been recently admitted into the artistic program of the Deutschland Zentralrat der Juden, with a program exploring rarely performed works of Jewish composers.
Mayan is currently taking voice lessons with Abbie Furmansky, with whom she has been studying in her private studio in Berlin since 2015.