Soprano Jodie Devos Has Died, Aged 35

The Belgian artist has passed away due to breast cancer

Born in Libramont-Chevigny, Belgium, Devos studied at the Institut de Musique et de Pédagogie in Namur with Benoît Giaux and Élise Gäbele. She went on to get a Master of Art in 2013 at the Royal Academy of Music in London, under Lillian Watson.

In 2014, she won the Second Prize and the Audience Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition of Belgium. In addition to winning Young Talent Artist of the Year 2015 by the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA), she also won several national competitions — including the Bell'Arte Competition, the Thirionet Fund, Les Nouveaux Talents de l'Art lyrique, and the Jacques Dôme Prize.

In 2014, she joined the Académie de l'Opéra Comique in Paris, where she was heard in productions of La Chauve-souris (Ida then Adèle) and Les Mousquetaires au convent.

She also sang at the Royal Opera of Wallonia in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rosina), Orphée aux Enfers (Eurydice) and Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna), and at the Montpellier Opera in L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (le Fire, the Nightingale and the Princess) and The Unexpected Swallow by Laks and Geneviève de Brabant by Offenbach.

Devos came out with three solo albums on Alpha Classics. The first two became a Gramophone Editor’s Choice.

Over the course of her career, Devos sang with conductors such as Paolo Arrivabeni, Roland Boer, Laurent Campellone, Mikko Franck, Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, Dmitri Jurowski, Enrique Mazzola, Marc Minkowski, Christophe Rousset, and Guy van Waas.