Fabulous soprano

A quick update here.  Valda is currently performing in the Verbier Festival in Geneva, and of course having a great time both on and off stage.
Valda is currently been performing in this piece, she is in the purple dress:
Verbier Festival Orchestra

Charles Dutoit conductor
Denis Kozhukhin piano
Yevgeny Sudbin piano
Elisabeth Leonskaja piano
Collegiate Chorale

Movie director : Anaïs Spiro

Location : Salle des Combins (Verbier, Switzerland)
Production : Idéale Audience - MUSEEC/medici.tv

Here are some current further details:
Valda Wilson on Facebook
Verbier Festival
Valdissima - Twitter
Valda Wilson - Soprano

Well, it has to be said, I'm having a boast here - but it's OK, surely, when it's your friend?
I met Valda at The University of Sydney whilst she was doing, wait for it, Honours in Stats & Maths.  We used to have a morning coffee at the same cafe, and the friendship has lasted. She's such an easy person to like.  A gift that, I reckon.
Now Valda jetsets around the world as an soprano opera singer.
She is truly fabulous and has had the confidence to get out there and do her thing.
Although it seems so easy for her to be great at everything, she really puts the elbow in and fills up her time working hard at it.  Before she was travelling everywhere, not only was she studying hard at the Conservatorium, Valda was forever doing rehearsals and performing in local productions featuring loads of Gilbert & Sullivan.  She just never seemed to stop.
One time my other half and I went to see her do a recital whilst still studying.  Before the performance I said "Are you nervous?"  "No," was the confused reply "should I be?".
I'm coasting along on her laurels, 'cause it makes me feel pretty fabulous by association.  Have to take what you can get when  you're me. 

Valda Wilson - yep, another Australian making the scene
Possessed of a ‘rich and beautifully cultivated voice, immaculately presented,’ Australian soprano Valda Wilson has been living and working in Europe since 2010. She won the prestigious Stella Maris International Vocal Competition in 2012 and was the 2011-12 Marten Bequest Singing Scholar. During the 2013 summer, Valda tours with the London Cello Orchestra to Geneva and Seoul. She then makes her debut concert performance with Maestro Charles Dutoit and the Verbier Festival Orchestra and sings Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Verbier Festival Academy. October sees her role debut as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (Bamberg, Bayern). The 2013-14 New Year celebrations mark her debut at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg singing Carmina Burana.Earlier in 2013, Valda Wilson made her Italian debut at the Teatro di San Carlo as First Wood Sprite in Dvorák’s Rusalka conducted by John Fiore, followed by her debut with the Hallé Orchestra under conductor Markus Stenz, before returning to the Dresden Semperoper for the world premiere of Prinz Bussel. Other roles which Valda has sung at the Semperoper, where she was a member of the Junges Ensemble from 2010-12, are Pamina and Papagena Die Zauberflöte , Inez Il trovatore, Jennie Hildebrand in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, ‘Judith’ in a modern production of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, Princess in Cesar Cui’s Der gestiefelte Kater, the title role in Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus , Mutter/Eichhörnchen/Magdalena (the female lead) in the world premiere of Jakub Flügelbunt by Czech composer Miroslav Srnka, and the cover of Musetta La Bohème.
In the summer of 2012, Valda Wilson was a member of the Young Singers Project at the 2012 Salzburg Festspiel where she performed Pamina in Die Zauberflöte für Kinder, covered Pamina in von Winter’s Das Labyrinth, and performed in concert at the Mozarteum and at the inaugural Festspiel Ball. The Australian soprano was chosen by Richard Bonynge AC CBE to be the only featured soloist at the Service of Thanksgiving for Dame Joan Sutherland at Westminster Abbey with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under Sir Antonio Pappano.  In 2012 Valda Wilson sang the title role in Handel’s Rodelinda with the Sydney Lyric Orchestra conducted by Maestro Bonynge.  Her Belgian debut followed with the premiere performance of Liszt’s Graner Messe with deFilharmonie (Royal Flemish Philharmonic) conducted by Philippe Herreweghe. She completed the year singing Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Orchestre des Champs Elysées also conducted by Philippe Herreweghe (touring France and Italy), and the Barrandov Opera Christmas Gala concerts. Valda Wilson was born in Sydney where she graduated with a Diploma of Opera from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and a first class Honours Science degree from Sydney University. Among the many awards she received at that time was a scholarship from Opera Foundation Australia to attend the master course at the National Opera Studio in London. 
Further reading:
Opera Insider
You Tube - Ravel
Sydney Morning Herald - Joan Sutherland Memorial