Gloria Bruni (born Brünhild Ulonska in 1955 in Oschersleben) is a German singer (soprano), violinist, composer and dentist.
Gloria Bruni is the daughter of a physicist and grew up with her sister in Hamburg.[3] She graduated from the Charlotte-Paulsen-Gymnasium in 1973. She received piano and violin lessons as a child and sang during her school years. In addition to studying dentistry and obtaining a doctorate,[4] she also studied composition with Diether de la Motte and singing with Naan Pöld in Hamburg, as well as in Munich and Milan.[3][5]
Bruni played as a violinist in the Hamburg Camerata Accademica and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, and performed on tours at venues including Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.[3]
As a singer, she was signed by Polydor and performed at the Puccini Festival and La Scala in Milan, with the London Mozart Players at the Dresden Semperoper and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.[3]
Bruni is married, has a daughter and lives in Hamburg.
Bruni composes primarily for choir and vocal soloists. Her compositions often incorporate elements of folk or sacred music, combining different musical genres.
Her Requiem a Roma was premiered in the Holy Year 2000[6] as a commission from the Vatican in the church of Sant’Ignazio[4] and excerpts were also performed before Pope John Paul II.[3] In 2008, the children’s opera Pinocchio, which she composed, premiered in the Laeiszhalle with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.[7][3] Further performances of the work followed, including at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and the Teatro Regio di Parma.[7][8] The musical The Thorn Birds (“The Thorn Birds”), based on the libretto by Colleen McCullough, premiered in 2009 by the Wales Theatre Company, followed by a tour of Great Britain.[3][9] Other works include the fairytale mini-opera The Enchanted Pancake and Symphony No. 1 – Ring Parable (after G. E. Lessing’s Nathan the Wise), which also premiered in the Laeiszhalle.[10] This symphony has been performed not only as a concert, but also several times as a ballet.