Rachel Tedder holds a Masters in Vocal Performance from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, USA. After completing her degree, she began teaching voice and directing the women's a cappella group Baldwin Charm at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, VA, a job that let her combine her passion for classical vocal music and pop a cappella, as well as develop her skills as a vocal arranger.
In musical gala shows on tour around Germany she has also portrayed roles such as Elisabeth from Elisabeth, Elphaba from Wicked, Evita from Evita, and Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca.
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As a classical soloist, Rachel has sung roles including Contessa in Le nozze did Figaro, Suor Genevieve and La Maestra della Novizie in Suor Angelica, and Siébel in Faust, in addition to concerts and other solo appearances.
As a musical singer, Rachel has played roles such as Marguerite in The Scarlet Pimpernel and Dido in The Ballad of Dido (which she also composed). At the moment you can hear her as Mrs. Hudson in Das Sherlock Musical and as Elsie in All You Need is Cheese at Urania Theater in Cologne
After moving to Germany in 2013, she founded operAcappella in 2014 with Bethany Barber. She is the group's music director and writes many of their arrangements and sings mezzo-soprano.
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Marije van der Ende started her musical journey when she was about 16 years old, after deciding not to pursue one of her other passions, painting. She began taking theatre and acting lessons at the age of five and discovered a love for the combination of theater and music in opera and musical theater.
Marije completed her Bachelor of Music at the Artez University of the Arts in Arnhem, the Netherlands. For her final project, she wrote a musical theatre show, for which she also designed and built historical costumes. She then moved to Essen, Germany to complete her musical studies with a master's degree in opera from the Folkwang Universität der Künste.
She has sung and acted in multiple operas, plays and oratorios, including The Turn of the Screw, Suor Angelica, The Tempest, and Simon Al-Odeh's modern chamber opera A Cow in Uniform.
Marije has a special love for jazz and Celtic music and is the lead singer of Irish folk rock band Celtic Voyager.
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She joined operAcappella in 2023 as the group's alto.
In his youth, Thomas Melcher studied piano with Prof. Boguslaw Strobel and his wife Maria Strobel. He also received lessons in composition from Dr. Critical and in the jazz piano by Tea-Sung Chung.
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At almost 20 years of age, he began to study acting at the Arturo Schauspielschule in Cologne. He was involved in productions at the Arturo Schauspielschule and other institutions as musical director, accompanist, vocal coach, and composer.
His education has been as diverse as his didactic and artistic work. He studied piano with concert pianist Gabriella Brezoczki and voice with Prof. Arthur Janzen, Hartmut Singer, Betty Striewe, and Kurt Moll. In 2008, he began studying vocal pedagogy and performance and secondary piano at the Cologne Hochschule für Musik und Tanz under Martin Lindsay. He graduated with a BM in vocal pedagogy and performance.
Thomas has been living in Essen since 2014 and teaches voice, piano, music theory, and voice therapy at his private music school Musik-Melcher. He has conducted the choir Heiligenhaus Frohsinn since October 2016 and has been a member of operAcappella since 2019.
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Beatrice completed her studies in musical theater at the Vienna Conservatory in 2010; during her studies, she also studied classical singing. Her vocal versatility has brought her numerous engagements in Austria and Germany, where, among others, she has appeared in Anatevka, Der Land des Lächeln, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Die Dreigroschenoper. Beatrice is a regular solo guest artists on Mein Schiff and joined operAcappella in 2022, where she sings soprano.