JANE McMAHAN has performed
widely throughout New York and New England, performing early music, Baroque
music, lieder, and extensive French repertoire. She has also been drawn
to unconventional and intimate venues-lofts, festivals, folk spaces, and
coffeehouses such as Le Figaro and Folk City. Jane was director and lead
singer of Mandragora, a group that performed Irish, Scottish, Balkan,
and Sephardic folk music as well as British music hall turns. Her folk
music singing and her "Seriously Satie" program of French mélodies
were recorded and aired on WBAI, where she later wrote, produced, and
presented the weekly Music Notes program and several music specials. For
artSynergy, a nonprofit group of artists of various disciplines who shared
in each other's creative process and joined together to present their
own work, she served as president.
Her own training has included
vocal studies with Shirlee Emmons and
Constantine Cassolas, early music with Andrea von Ramm and Lucy Cross,
Baroque music with Albert Fuller and Jay Bernfeld, and modern French mélodie
with Pierre Bernac and Thomas Grubb. A graduate of Manhattan School of
Music, Jane later pursued doctoral studies in theatre at CUNY Graduate
School and published articles on performance, particularly in the fields
of street theatre and contemporary puppet theatre.