Marianne Beate Kielland was born in 1975 in Norway. She graduated from The Norwegian Academy of Music in 2000. At the Academy she had among others Ingrid Bjoner and Svein Bjørkøy as her main pedagogues. She has also studied with Oren Brown and with Barbara Bonney, and she has taken part in master classes with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Marianne Beate Kielland is established as one of the foremost singers of Scandinavia. After finishing her studies she was engaged at the State Opera in Hanover, Germany. She regularly works with all of Norway’s leading orchestras and choirs (including Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra and Norwegian Chamber Orchestra) in addition to Anima Eterna Brugge, Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, Concerto Köln, Europa Galante, Concert des Nations, RIAS chamber choir, Orchestre Champs-Elysees, Collegium Vocale Gent and Bach Collegium Japan.
She has performed with conductors such as Jos van Immerseel, Fabio Biondi, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Phillippe Herreweghe, Masaaki Suzuki, Helmuth Rilling, Fabio Bonnizioni, Jordi Savall, Thomas Dausgaard, Ari Rasilainen, Joshua Rifkin, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Manfred Honeck, Iona Brown, Andreas Spering, Daniel Reuss, Hans Christoph Rademann, Thomas Søndergaard, Bjarte Engeset and Christian Eggen, and she has appeared in all central church musical works in addition to Brahms Alto Rhapsody, Wagner Wesendonck-Lieder, Mahler Das Lied von der Erde, Rückert-Lieder, Symphony no. 2 and 3, Berlioz Les Nuits d’Été and Berio Folk Songs and Coro (see repertory list).
In the baroque repertoire she has most of all received received good critics for her Bach interpretations. She was the first female alto ever to perform with The Bach Ensemble and Joshua Rifkin, she has recorded all of Bach’s solo alto cantatas for Naxos with Kölner Kammerorchester and Helmut Müller-Brühl, and in March -05 she in Japan together with the Swedish soprano Susanne Rydén performed the world premiere of the newly constructed Bach cantata “Vergnügte Pleissenstadt” (BWV 216), which was found in Japan in 2002.
Kielland performes regularly with pianist Nils Anders Mortensen. They appeared several times at Lofoten International Festival, they have toured all over Norway, Estonia and Finland, and their first recording: Thommessen – Veslemøy Synsk – will be released in 2010/-11. Several recordings are planned to follow.
She also performed lieder with pianists such as: Leif Ove Andsnes, Jos van Immerseel, Pascal Roge, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Uta Hielscher, Sergej Osadchuk and Einar Henning Smebye.
Her master’s degree (How to interpret and perform graphically notated music) brought her well into contemporary music. Later she premiered works by Maja Ratkje, Wolfgang Plagge, Christian Eggen, Juliane Klein, Willy Daum, Ralf Ollertz, Nils Henrik Asheim and Iver Kleive. She was from 2005-2009 the director of the contemporary music festival ILIOS in Harstad, Norway.
Her more than 20 recordings for among others Harmonia Mundi, ZigZag, Avie records, Capriccio, Naxos, 2L and Kirkelig Kulturverksted include several Bach recordings with Helmut Müller-Brühl and Joshua Rifkin, Martin with Daniel Reuss, Beethoven and Haydn with Jos van Immerseel, Haydn with Michael Willens and lieder by Schumann, Brahms and the Norwegian composer Alf Hurum.
She is often broadcasted in radio and TV in Norway and abroad.