BIOGRAPHY
Marieke de Koker (she/they) is a South African
multi-disciplinary artist based in New York City.
This season Marieke has joined the Artichoke Dance Company's Ambassadors program for eco-arts activism. She will appear in the New York Theatre Festival in October with Stacey Bernadette Goes Dating. This summer her operatic music video won the Best Directing award at the SOI Cedolins International Opera Competition.
In the 2023/24 season Marieke's operatic debuts include the title role of Iolanthe with Bronx Opera Company and Susan in The Marriage Counselor with Garden State Opera. She performs in several collaborative recitals and world premieres with pianist Kamilla Arku, pianist Maggie Hinchliffe, organist Alexander Straus-Fausto, WQXR radio, the Mosaic Composers Collective, Music on Madison, the German Consulate of New York, and more.
Marieke is featured in lead roles in several short films including Angel in Saving Coney Island (Dir Mick Bongiovi), Maggie in Killer Queen (Dir Xavier Solis), Sister Marissa in Stations (Dir Esther Soca), Mother in The Upgrade (Dir Moorea Friedman), the title role in Dancing Stranger (Dir Malachi Alexis), and the haunting villain in The Crematorium (Dir Jose Colon Jr).
Marieke joined the 2024 Opera America Career Blueprints workshop. She was named a 2023 recipient of the International Opera Awards Foundation Bursary and Winner of the inaugural Nightingale Opera Competition.
In the 2022/23 season Marieke stars in the title role of Béatrice in Béatrice et Bénédict with Shakespeare Opera Theater and performs in the world premiere of Iceland at LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club with Overtone Industries. With Bronx Opera she performs in The Messiah and sings the lead role of Liza Elliott in an outreach production of Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark. She performs the role of Giunone in La Calisto with Mannes Opera and Speaker for the Greek chorus workshop of AGAMEMNON by David T. Little with Theater for a New Audience. She performs with the Mosaic Composer's Collective, the Academy of Fortepiano Performance, the Career Bridges Opera Awards, and American Friends of the Donizetti Opera Festival's masterclass with Lawrence Brownlee. Marieke was named winner of the DePaul Concerto Competition with her 2021 original song cycle Never Again, based on poetry by Valentine Kizito.
In 2021 Marieke made her radio debut with South Africa's RSG radio broadcast of the Salon Music Christmas Concert with Brooklyn Theatre TV and Gauteng Philharmonic Orchestra. She was an Emerging Artist at the Windybrow Arts Center in South Africa where she was interviewed on the ETV Morning show about her composition Born of Angels for the Aluta Continua series honoring Nelson Mandela. Marieke's 2021 song cycle Never Again was featured on the Lieder Laboratory podcast.
Past roles include Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Tamara in Rubinstein's The Demon, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, Madame Herz and Madame Silberklang in Der Schauspieldirektor, Jutta (cover) in In The Green and Chorus in Dr Sun Yat-Sen.
Marieke has performed with Johannesburg Opera, Really Spicy Opera, the International Contemporary Ensemble's Ensemble Evolution, the Art Song Preservation Society of New York and Windy City Performing Arts. Past awards include the Alsop Foundation Entrepreneurship Award for performing arts, the George and Phyllis Muccianti Vocal Scholarship from Casa Italia Chicago, First Prize at Charleston International Music Competition, Second Prize at Hal Leonard Vocal Competition, Finalist at the Boosey & Hawkes International Sing Finzi competition and Concorso Internazionale Città di Alessandria.
Marieke received her MM in Vocal Performance and Impact Entrepreneurship from Mannes School of Music at The New School in New York. She holds a BM in Vocal Performance from DePaul University in Chicago. Marieke is a Motion Picture Arts alumnus of the Interlochen Arts Academy High School. Originally from Pretoria, South Africa, Marieke is an advocate for Pan-African music. She founded the Pan-African Classical Singers Facebook group, home to 3K members from over 100 countries celebrating opera in Africa. Marieke is Publishing Team Lead at the US-Nigerian Àkójọpọ̀ Music Foundation where she is leading the development of a nonprofit e-commerce marketplace for Pan-African music. Marieke is a founding board member of the Canadian queer and drag opera company Opéra Queens.
