Young bolivian contralto Angelica Monje Torrez, grew up around the Bolivian Manuscript archives of Chiquitos and la Plata as a choir singer and baroque violinist. She initially learned the baroque pochette de tacuara, a baroque instrument taught by Indigenous Maestro Solfa Pascual, a legacy of oral tradition of the violin masters of the 17th century Missions in what is now Bolivia and eventually discovered by Piotr Nawrot, head of the Bolivian Archives and SVD Priest himself. Angelica debuted as a 17 year old Contralto in the Award winning recordings: Bolivian Baroque Vol. 2 and 3 with the Dutch label Channel Classics, presenting world premiere recordings of this ''unknown'' repertoire discovered in various Bolivian churches and archives dated from the 17th Century with British Ensemble Florilegium, on a European tour in Holland and the UK sponsored by Prince Claus, a Gramophone award of recording of the month and a BBC music Magazine CD of the month, debuting LIVE at the BBC's broadcast of In Tune.
The discoveries of the new archives of the new world lead to further collaborations with various European conductors like the Argentinian Leonardo Garcia Alarcon in the equally successful recording Carmina Latina for , where as a young Alto, her solos feature the virtuosism of the repertoire of what is know as Sucre, Bolivia today with the remarkeable Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Clematis and Capella Mediterranea, touring all major festivals in Europe.
While she studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, she became the youngest member of the Choir of the Radiotelevisione Svizzera Italiana under the baton of Diego Fasolis, who gave her her first contract in Europe, as a rare true Contralto, Angelica specialized in Historical Performance praxis of Baroque Opera and Early Music singing at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, under the advice of Michael Chance and Rosa Dominguez, finishing her training in December of 2022 at the Hochschule fur Musik Weimar in the Klasse of renowned German voice pedagogue Siegfried Gohritz.
As a musicological researcher, Miss Monje Torrez has attributed compositions of European composers found in the South American archives of La Plata and Chiquitos, finding lose arias of J.A. Hasse and J.S. Bach, previously conceived as Anonymous compositions (by various Musicologists) with different sacred text for Mission performance in what was known at the time as the new World.
Bridging two very ''isolated'' worlds of Early Music in what is now the new world and a world leading career as a young dramatic contralto and mostly a world premiere recording artist, the contralto voice is a voice as rare as full of unconventionalities sometimes entering into the haute-countre register and even having sung small solos as tenor 1 under the baton of Diego Fasolis, Andrea Marcon and Herve Niquet
Angelica graduated as a two time finalist of the Cesti Competition in Innsbruck, at the London Handel Competition, the Froville Baroque Singing Competition and the Napoli Concorso di Canto barocco della Capella della pieta de Turchini. She has received Student grants such as the Career Prize of the Lyra Foundation, the Rapp stiftung and the DOMS Stiftung in Basel.
She has appeared in concert under Jordi Savall and la Capella Real de Catalunya, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon and his Cappella Mediterranea, Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Rinaldo Alessandrini along with Amandine Beyer and Leyla Schayegh for the world premiere of Lulier's Oratorio di Natale, An Academie alumna of the Prangins Baroque 2022 with Marijana Mijanovic and Jory Vinikour, the Ambronay Baroque Academy with Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, the Cima Baroque Academy with Jordi Savall and the Royaumont Monteverdi Academy with Rene Jacobs.
As a soloist, Angelica collaborates regularely with Seicento specialist ensemble L'Arpeggiata, whose's Motets and Mass by Giovanni Felice Sances premiered in the 2014 version of the Utrecht's Oude Muziek created a sensation around the re discovery of his Missa Maria Magdalenae and the beautiful Letania della Vergine and later in 2014 creating Orfeo Chaman for French TV network Arte and the Colombian national Theater Julio Mario Santo Domingo along Hana Blazikova, Paul Phoenix from the King Singers and and blind folk mega star Nahuel Pennisi as Orfeo in Christina Pluhar's Baroque Pasticcio set to spanish to the music of Cavalli, Monteverdi and Vivaldi, among other south american baroque standards. Angelica's future engagements include the Alto Solos in Bach's Weinachtsoratorium with Ton Koopman in Weimar, and the CD recording the Modern premiere of Roque Ceruti's Contralto cantatas collection based in the myth of La Penelope with Swiss Harpsichordist Norberto Broggini in 2023 finishing her Artist Diploma at the Ecole Normale de Paris.