Meet Our Guest Artists
Michael Lanci
Marella Martin Koch
Michael Lanci is a composer and educator currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. His music is viscerally engaging and stylistically diverse, drawing from a wide range of influences. Michael's short comedic chamber opera Admissions, written in collaboration with librettist Kim Davies as part of the American Opera Initiative program with the Washington National Opera, was premiered in January 2020 at the Kennedy Center. He was a finalist for the 2018-19, Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation competition that included the commissioning and premiere of his first opera Crude Capital, with libretto by Ajax Phillips. Michael is currently working on a variety of projects exploring different musical mediums.
Michael was recently selected for the Composers & the Voice Fellowship with The American Opera Project based in NYC. He was awarded the 2017-18, American Prize for his Songs for Joe Hill. His works have been performed at festivals such as the Cortona Sessions, Edmont Fringe Festival, Orford Festival, Detroit Bureau of Sound, Midwest Composers Symposium and the Vox Novus Festival. He has received commissions from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, The Response Project, Beyond Pluck, Unhread-of//Ensemble, Klangpar2, and the Vive! Ensemble. His works have been performed by the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, Contemporaneous, Present Music, Hypercube, Opera Theater Oregon, Great Noise Ensemble, All Of The Above, SINGULARITY, Duo d’Entre Deux, and Decho Ensemble.
Michael holds a B.M. in piano performance from SUNY Albany, where he also studied composition with Max Lifchitz and a M.M. in composition from SUNY Fredonia, where he studied with Rob Deemer and Karl Boelter. Michael completed his D.M.A. in composition at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati where he studied with Michael Fiday.
Ford Fourqurean
Ford Fourqurean strives to bring communities together through music. He is an award-winning clarinetist, electronic musician, and composer based in New York City. He serves as artistic director of Unheard-of//Ensemble along with many other projects connecting contemporary music with new audiences.
Known as “a unique force” (The Clarinet Journal) in contemporary music, he has toured across the United States with Unheard-of//Ensemble performing at Cornell, Manhattan School of Music, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and many others. He is Founder and Executive Director of the Collaborative Composition Initiative workshop (CCI//Sessions) bringing together composers each summer from across the country. This season, he is performing and presenting virtual residencies with Unheard-of at Florida State University, University of Florida, University of Central Florida, and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. He has won grants grants from Chamber Music America, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Barlow Endowment, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Johnstone Fund for New Music, and New Music USA.
Ford performs across New York and the U.S. from venues such as National Sawdust, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Roulette, and Spectrum to DIY spaces and house concerts. In Spring 2020, his group Spark Duo with trumpeter Kate Amrine toured New Mexico and Arizona visiting the Interference Series, University of New Mexico, Arizona State University, University of Northern Arizona, and University of Arizona. In fall 2019, he performed in Seoul, South Korea with ensemble mise-en as part of Arts Incubator’s Audio Trading Manual. He toured the Midwest in 2018 with Tenth Intervention visiting Denison University, Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s Contemporary Festival, and the Johnstone series in Columbus, Ohio. As a freelancer in NYC Ford has worked with Little Orchestra Society, Fresh Squeezed Opera, Curiosity Cabinet in a guest residency at Queens College, and the Uptown Philharmonic in prior years.
Ford also loves to share his experiences working with electronics. This Fall, he presented lectures on adapting to remote recording and streaming at University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire, Troy University, and Coastal Carolina University. His article on streaming live concerts and the “virtual tour” has been published on The Clarinet Journal Online where he also serves as one of the contributors for album reviews. Ford has presented his research on Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Quintet at Clarinet Fest, Madrid as finalist of the 2015 International Clarinet Association Research Competition. He has also earned recognition as one of six national winners of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi’s Marcus L. Urann Fellowship.
As a composer, Ford studies composition with Nirmali Fenn. He has studied with Reiko Füting, Todd Reynolds, and Fred Cohen, and vocal composition with Susan Botti. He worked as studio manager and assistant in MSM’s Contemporary Performance Program coordinating electronics for contemporary recitals. He has brought Project M, his new initiative developing new works for clarinet and MUGIC motion sensor, to Oh My Ears! Festival in Phoenix, Arizona and Mise-en’s Bushwick Open Studios. His music has been performed on the Concept Lab series, as part of a Westben artist residency, and the Cortona Sessions. He is releasing a new EP Iris with composer Erich Barganier in February 2021.
Ford is an advanced Doctorate of Musical Arts candidate at Stony Brook University as well as Teaching Assistant and Assistant Director of the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players (CCP). He served as Interim Director of the CCP during the Fall 2019 semester as well. He holds a Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program where he worked with David Krakauer and Alan R. Kay.
Marella Martin Koch is a librettist and director noted for her “cleverness in constructing humor for opera” (DC Theatre Scene) and ability to “sketch complete characters in swift, sure lines” (The Washington Post).
Her one-act opera Pepito (music by Nicolas Lell Benavides) was commissioned by Washington National Opera's American Opera Initiative. Since its Kennedy Center premiere, Pepito has been presented across the country (Nashville Opera, Shreveport Opera, Opera USC, Texas Christian University), recorded as a cast album “full of nuance and emotional pull” (Operawire), and released as an “entrancing” animated short film (The Bark).
Other notable work includes the “quizzical and wonderstruck” (San Francisco Classical Review) Ten Minutes in the Life or Death of… (music by Tyler J. Rubin), which premiered at West Edge Opera’s Snapshot 2021 at the Bruns Amphitheater; Gilberto (with Benavides), developed at The Glimmerglass Festival, New Opera West, and West Edge Opera; and The Dashwood Sister Song Cycles (UCLA School of Music, Opera America, SUNY Plattsburgh Jane Austen and the Arts Conference, Yale School of Music, 2020 Lower Manhattan Creative Engagement Award Recipient).
Her comedic musicals Adam & Eve (music by Minhui Lee), How Love Feels (music by Jonathan Fadner), and Danny & The Rocket (music by Casey O’Neil) have been developed in readings (National Asian Artists Project: Discover New Musicals, Barrington Stage Company), residencies (Access Theater, Catwalk Institute, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Writer’s Retreat), and workshops (Tisch New Musical Theatre Workshop, Pocono Mountains Music Festival Developmental Lab), and productions (The Duplex, The Kraine Theater, Common Man Musicals at Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance). She has been a guest director for the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program since 2018 and was previously the guest instructor in libretto-writing at UCLA School of Music.
Issei Herr
Cellist Issei Herr is committed to a diverse array of music both old and new. A compelling soloist and a dedicated collaborator, Issei performs a scope of repertoire that ranges from the music of Bach, Babbitt, and Berio to Schubert, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. Issei is a fierce advocate of the music of our time, working closely with living composers to develop emerging repertoire and presenting new works in the context of innovative concert programs.
Issei is an active member of PinkNoise, a chamber ensemble dedicated to the juxtaposition of works of the core repertoire with musical improvisation. Issei is also the newest member of Unheard-of//Ensemble, a contemporary quartet dedicated to the development and performance of new music by living composers. Issei has joined both ensembles in masterclasses and residencies at Cornell University, the Shanghai Conservatory, the Xinghai Conservatory in Guangzhou, Alia Musica Pittsburgh, and Stony Brook University, among others.
Issei has worked closely with some of the leading composers of our time, including Mario Davidovsky, Kaija Saariaho, Nico Muhly, and Augusta Read Thomas. He has performed as a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s SoundLab Ensemble, alongside the JACK Quartet in the American premiere of Zosha Di Castri’s String Octet, the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, and as a member of the League of Composers Orchestra. In 2016, he appeared as a concerto soloist with the New Juilliard Ensemble in the New York premiere of Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky’s Hearing Solution.
In addition to his performing career, Issei is a committed musical educator and entrepreneur. He maintains a private teaching studio in New York City, with growing online satellites throughout the world. Issei is the co-founder of Circle Circle Arts, a worldwide music education company based in the United States. Issei recently completed studies at The Juilliard School, where he was a student of distinguished cellist Fred Sherry.
Daniel Anastasio
A soloist and chamber musician based in San Antonio, Texas, pianist Daniel Anastasio combines an intellectual curiosity with “technical prowess and emotional sensitivity” (Rivard Report). His performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3, conducted by Leon Fleisher with the Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra, was “the highlight to everyone’s ears, if the full-house of standing ovation were any indication” (ECM reviews). Anastasio was a concerto competition finalist at Cornell University, Stony Brook University, and Juilliard, where he won the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He received fellowships to Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall, Tanglewood Music Center and Yellow Barn Music Festival. Anastasio is the co-founder of Unheard-of//Ensemble, a group dedicated to commissioning composers and premiering their works.
Recently joining the faculty of San Antonio College as a full-time piano instructor, Anastasio is a member of Agarita, a San Antonio-based chamber ensemble dedicated to making classical music accessible to everyone in San Antonio, and reaching the whole of its community including the most underserved populations. Anastasio received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and philosophy at Cornell University under Xak Bjerken, and a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School under Jerome Lowenthal. Last Spring he received his Doctor of Musical Arts at Stony Brook University, under Gilbert Kalish and Christina Dahl.
Ann Gumpper
Paula Maust
Ann Gumpper resides at the western corner of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota where she is Resident Scenic Designer for Lyric Opera of the North (LOON), recently part of the award-winning creative team for Decameron Opera Coalition’s Tales From a Safe Distance. Recognized as an inspired collaborator, Ann has created scenery for a variety of theatre, opera and ballet companies including NorShor Theatre, Minnesota Ballet, Wise Fool Theatre, Twin Cities Ballet, Skylark Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Civic Theatre, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, University of MN Duluth (UMD) Theatre and UMD Opera Studio.
Prior to arriving in the Northland, Ann designed for Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, CA; New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in Madison; Theatre-by-the-Sea in Matunuck, RI; University of Virginia in Richmond, among others; she began her career at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, England. Ann holds an MFA in Scenic Design from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.
Jamie Gallupe
Jamie Gallupe is a cellist, viola da gamba player, and soprano who specializes in the field of historically informed performance practice. Like many who are drawn to historical performance, Jamie’s musical studies began with traditional cello pedagogy. However her taste for the more eclectic things in life took her to perform in a variety of nontraditional venues. This immersion in diverse styles and performance practices eventually led her to find her passion in both early and contemporary music, as well as education. In addition to an active performing life, Jamie is a dedicated teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience ranging from cello, to choir, to martial arts.
Jamie completed a Master of Music in historical performance at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 2019. There she studied baroque cello and viola da gamba with Dr. John Moran as well as voice with Ah Young Hong. She received her Bachelor's degree from Eastern Michigan University where she studied cello with Deborah Pae of the Formosa Quartet.
Dr. Paula Maust is a performer-scholar whose work focuses on amplifying underrepresented voices and providing open access to educational resources. As a harpsichordist and organist, she has been praised for combining “great power with masterful subtlety” by DC Metro Theater Arts and as a “refined and elegant performer” by the Boston Musical Intelligencer. In her work as a co-director of Burning River Baroque and Musica Spira, Paula curates lecture-concerts connecting baroque music to contemporary social issues. Other recent collaborations have been with the Folger Consort, the Washington Bach Consort, Tempesta di Mare, and the Handel Choir of Baltimore.
Paula is a faculty member at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the Peabody Conservatory, and the Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches courses in music theory, keyboard skills, music history, and private lessons. Her most recent publication is an open-source repository of music theory examples by women and BIPoC composers, which can be viewed at www.expandingthemusictheorycanon.com. Her current project, The Ugly Virtuosa, examines the pejorative language used to describe the first generation of professional female musicians in England, Italy, and France.
Asa Zimmerman
Asa Zimmerman is a baroque violinist and violist based in Baltimore, Maryland. In this capacity, they perform with a number of ensembles, including the Washington Bach Consort, The Smithsonian Chamber Players, Tempesta di Mare, the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Modern Musick, Handel Choir of Baltimore, Baltimore Choral Arts, Novella Antiqua, BaRock Band, Tazzina Drammatica, the Baltimore Baroque Band, and Charm City Baroque.
Asa holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a Master of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from Peabody Conservatory. They are currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Peabody.
Anna Betka
Czech-Canadian artist Anna Betka is an active solo and collaborative pianist. In North America, Ms. Betka has performed in venues such as Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall and Mazzoleni Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater in New York and the National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Ms. Betka has also performed in Germany, France, Czech Republic and the UK. Summer festivals and residencies have included the Banff Centre for the Arts, Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Aspen Music Festival and School, Toronto Summer Music Festival and Academy and The Glimmerglass Festival.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Betka has performed, premiered and recorded many contemporary works at venues in New York, Indiana, Colorado and Alberta, Canada. Her playing can also be heard on Mark Applebaum’s newest album “Speed Dating” as part of the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players. This past May, she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from SUNY Stony Brook University, where she studied with Gil Kalish and Christina Dahl. As an educator, Ms. Betka serves as adjunct faculty at Adelphi University and previously served for four years on faculty at Stony Brook University’s Pre-College Division. She is also Choir Director and Organist at St. James Episcopal Church in New York. Ms. Betka has a background in singing and holds an Associate of the Royal Conservatory Toronto Diploma in Singing (ARCT) and has a passion for writing and communication. She combines her three passions of language, piano and singing in vocal coaching and specializes in Czech diction. For the past two seasons she was a Young Artist Coach at The Glimmerglass Festival.
Faith Amour
Faith Amour is an award-winning composer, recording artist, and educator from Toronto, Canada. Her compositions for mixed chorus have been performed by church, school and community choirs in Canada and the U.S., including Toronto’s Orpheus Choir, Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Bach Children’s Chorus and Amadeus Choirs. She directed student choirs at Glendon College and Roberts Wesleyan College, and has been guest conductor for children’s and adult choirs.
She won awards for 3 separate years in the Amadeus Choir Christmas and Hanukkah song competition. She was a New York State Finalist for the Music Educators National Conference (MENC)’s in the Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) John Lennon Scholarship Composition Competition. Her multilingual jazz/world album “Bright Eyes” won two New Mexico Music Awards, and she recently released her second album entitled “Classics Volume.1”, comprised of jazz standards.
Marlen Nahhas
Marlen Nahhas, praised for her “impassioned soprano” (San Francisco Chronicle), is currently a Cafritz Young Artist with the Washington National Opera. Upcoming engagements include Mimì in La bohème at Washington National Opera. Highlights of her time as a Cafritz Young Artist include Pamina in The Magic Flute, Violetta in La traviata (under the direction of Francesca Zambello), Flamingo in Jeanine Tesori’s The Lion, The Unicorn and Me, Queer Kid in the world premiere of Kamla Sankaram’s Taking Up Serpents, the Concert of Comedic Masterpieces program under the baton of Maestro Joseph Colaneri, and Foreign Woman in The Consul. She made her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in excerpts from La bohème conducted by NSO music director Maestro Gianandrea Noseda.
In the summer of 2018, she was a member of the Merola Opera program at the San Francisco Opera where she performed scenes from Il tabarro, Don Giovanni, Don Carlo, and La rondine in the Schwabacher and Grand Finale concerts. During the 2017-2018 season Ms. Nahhas made her Kansas City Symphony debut singing excerpts from Le nozze di Figaro. In April 2018, Ms. Nahhas was a National Semi-Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. During the summers of 2016 and 2017, Marlen was an Apprentice Artist with Central City Opera where her assignments included covering the title role in Tosca and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. A native of Houston, Texas, Ms Nahhas is a graduate of Oklahoma City University and Indiana University. While completing her studies she performed the title role in Madama Butterfly, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, and Violetta in La traviata.
Audrey Chait,
Resident Stage Director
Audrey Chait is a director, writer, and producer of opera and theater. In the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Chait directed The Bartered Bride and the North American premiere of Dark Star Requiem, both at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and La fille du regiment for Winter Opera St. Louis. Due to COVID-19, her 2020 productions at Tri-Cities Opera, Westminster Choir College, and Opera Las Vegas were cancelled. In summer 2020, Ms. Chait joined the prestigious Merola Opera Program.
Ms. Chait’s production of L’elisir d’amore for Winter Opera St. Louis was nominated for a St. Louis Theater Circle Award for Best Opera. Other recent credits include Dinner at Eight and the Bach St. John Passion for CCM, La cenerentola with Opera Las Vegas, Scalia/Ginsburg with Opera North, and The Magic Flute Outreach Tour with Kentucky Opera. Ms. Chait holds a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and an Artist Diploma from CCM. She is a 2019 recipient of the NOA JoElyn Wakefield-Wright Stage Director Fellowship.
Terrence Chin-Loy
With his "richly colored voice" (Seen and Heard International), Jamaican-American tenor Terrence Chin-Loy pairs passionate performance with a full, sweet sound. The 2019-2020 season saw Terrence in his first engagement at the Metropolitan Opera as Mingo (Cover) in The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, reprising Younger Thompson in Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied, and making debuts with the New York Festival of Song as a part of the Vocal Rising Stars series. During the holiday season, he sang Messiah with the U.S. Navy Orchestra, and in the summer of 2020, he was scheduled to premiere a new piece by Daniel Bernard Roumain at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival on the topic of the shooting of Philando Castile.
Terrence is a recent graduate of Indiana University, where he received a Performer Diploma. He also holds degrees from Mannes College and Yale University. At Mannes, he performed the roles of Laurie in Mark Adamo's Little Women and Bill in the New York premiere of Jonathan Dove's Flight with Mannes Opera while a Master of Music candidate, and received the Michael Sisca Opera Award, the school's top prize for an opera singer. Terrence holds a BA in Music from Yale University, where he concentrated his studies on Music Theory and Musicology. He wrote his thesis on “Visions in Death: Wagner's Ecstasies,” an exploration of ecstatic musics during the deaths of Brünnhilde and Isolde. He is a 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions National Semifinalist.
Amr Selim
Known for his versatility and virtuosity, Egyptian hornist Amr Selim is quickly establishing a reputation as one of today’s foremost horn players, drawing audiences wherever his horn takes him by his distinctive sound across different musical genres. Having started playing the Horn at the age of eleven, he won his first job only five years later at the age of sixteen with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as Guest Principal Horn with Amman Symphony Orchestra, National Algerian Orchestra, Ars Flores Symphony Orchestra and Symphony of the Americas in Florida, under the batons of renowned conductors: Daniel Barenboim, Frank Shipway, Christopher Muller, Ingo Metzmacher, Gunther Schuller among many others. Amr has toured as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher throughout Europe, South Korea, and across the Middle East and United States. As an educator, Dr. Selim is an Assistant Professor of Music, and Founder and Director of Imagine Summer Arts Camp at the Lebanese American University. Prior to moving to Beirut, he was the horn professor at Adelphi University, Mahanaim Conservatory, and Director of Chamber and World Music Ensembles at the Knox School and has given and continue to give masterclasses and workshops at many prestigious institutions such as at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Queens College, Stony Brook University, among other institutions in the U.S, South Korea and the Middle East.
Along with the masterpieces of the 18th through 20th centuries, Amr is constantly inspired by works composed in our time and enjoys working with living composers, having premiered many works by European, Middle Eastern and American composers. Interested in bridging Eastern and Western music, he recently finished his etude book Vocalizing the Horn: A pedagogical approach to interpreting Arab vocal music on the horn, which helps non-Eastern horn players to understand and perform Middle Eastern works. His research includes topics on Music and Qur’an and the religious music of Egypt. Dr. Selim Holds a Bachelor of Music from Cairo Conservatory, a Professional Performance Certificate from Lynn Conservatory, and as a Staller Scholar he holds a Master of Music and Doctorate of Music Arts degree from Stony Brook University.
Anna Betka
Czech-Canadian artist Anna Betka is an active solo and collaborative pianist. In North America, Ms. Betka has performed in venues such as Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall and Mazzoleni Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater in New York and the National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Ms. Betka has also performed in Germany, France, Czech Republic and the UK. Summer festivals and residencies have included the Banff Centre for the Arts, Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, Aspen Music Festival and School, Toronto Summer Music Festival and Academy and The Glimmerglass Festival.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Betka has performed, premiered and recorded many contemporary works at venues in New York, Indiana, Colorado and Alberta, Canada. Her playing can also be heard on Mark Applebaum’s newest album “Speed Dating” as part of the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players. This past May, she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from SUNY Stony Brook University, where she studied with Gil Kalish and Christina Dahl. As an educator, Ms. Betka serves as adjunct faculty at Adelphi University and previously served for four years on faculty at Stony Brook University’s Pre-College Division. She is also Choir Director and Organist at St. James Episcopal Church in New York.
Ms. Betka has a background in singing and holds an Associate of the Royal Conservatory Toronto Diploma in Singing (ARCT) and has a passion for writing and communication. She combines her three passions of language, piano and singing in vocal coaching and specializes in Czech diction. For the past two seasons she was a Young Artist Coach at The Glimmerglass Festival.
Trevor Neal
Hailed by Opera News for his “warm and rich baritone,” Grammy-nominated Trevor Neal is a favorite among audiences across the United States and an emerging arts administration professional. Prior to becoming the first person to obtain the title of Artistic Director with the Newport Music Festival, he joined the company as the Education and Outreach Coordinator. In his nine months leading the department, Trevor secured nearly $100,000 in funding to build an Artist-in-Residence program in coordination with Newport Schools, expanded and curated the weekly Classical Kids Hour with WCRI Classical 95.9 FM, reimagined the Young Professional Artist program, and built a new community music school offering free after-school lessons to students receiving free or reduced-price school lunches.
In the 2018/19 season, Trevor returned to the Newport Music Festival, singing works of Schubert, Bizet, Rossini, Copland, and Heggie, and to Virginia Opera to sing Henry Davis in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. As a returning member of Opera San Jose’s resident company, audiences saw him in a matinee as Tonio in Pagliacci, Captain Gardiner in Moby Dick, and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. In 2017/18, he sang Rambaldo in La Rondine, a matinee performance of Dutchman in Der fliegende Holländer, and made a triumphant role debut as Giorgio Germont in La traviata. Of this performance, James Sohre of Opera Today wrote "Trevor Neal was an imposing Giorgio Germont, his physical stature and rotund baritone impressively illuminating the character… His sonorous, mellifluous delivery was marked by beautifully shaped phrases and incisive theatrical insights."
Trevor previously served as the Director of Strategic Planning for New York-based chamber opera company The Secret Opera, and Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Metro East Opera.
Audrey Chait
Audrey Chait is a director, writer, and producer of opera and theater. In the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Chait directed The Bartered Bride and the North American premiere of Dark Star Requiem, both at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and La fille du regiment for Winter Opera St. Louis. Due to COVID-19, her 2020 productions at Tri-Cities Opera, Westminster Choir College, and Opera Las Vegas were cancelled. In summer 2020, Ms. Chait joined the prestigious Merola Opera Program.
Ms. Chait’s production of L’elisir d’amore for Winter Opera St. Louis was nominated for a St. Louis Theater Circle Award for Best Opera. Other recent credits include Dinner at Eight and the Bach St. John Passion for CCM, La cenerentola with Opera Las Vegas, Scalia/Ginsburg with Opera North, and The Magic Flute Outreach Tour with Kentucky Opera.
Ms. Chait holds a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and an Artist Diploma from CCM. She is a 2019 recipient of the NOA JoElyn Wakefield-Wright Stage Director Fellowship.
Bruce Adolphe
Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his Piano Puzzlers, broadcast weekly on public radio’s Performance Today with Fred Child since 2002 — has composed a substantial body of music inspired by science, visual arts, and human rights, as well as works for young audiences. Mr. Adolphe’s works based on writings by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio include: Memories of a Possible Future; Self Comes to Mind; and Musics of Memory. Yo-Yo Ma premiered Self Comes to Mind in 2009 at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Other science-inspired music includes Einstein’s Light, recorded by Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke for Sony Classical, and his tribute to astronaut Piers Sellers, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is, performed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2019. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists. Adolphe’s many works for young listeners include Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto, Tough Turkey in the Big City (script by Louise Gikow), and one-act operas The Amazing Adventure of Alvin Allegretto (written with librettist Sarah Schlessinger for the Metropolitan Opera Guild), and Let Freedom Sing: The Story of Marian Anderson (written with librettist Caroliva Herron for the Washington National Opera).
Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including The Mind’s Ear (OUP). He contributed the chapter on composing to Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal (OUP, 2019), an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists. In 2020, Mr. Adolphe is creating a series of video memoirs for weekly social media broadcasts by Performance Today and an educational video series called InspectorPulse@Home for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Current compositional projects include My Lost One, setting a poem by Reem Al-Shamiry, for the Human Rights Orchestra and soprano Angel Blue; and Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt for the Dallas Symphony.
Richard Lalli
Richard Lalli has performed around the world as a singer and pianist, and has taught at Yale University since 1982. Highlights of his performance career include solo recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall and other European venues, and performances of Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon with Peter Serkin and the Brentano String Quartet. Lalli is a champion of new music, having premiered works of Pulizer Prize recipients Ned Rorem and Lewis Spratlan. With pianist Gary Chapman, Lalli has recorded four discs of popular songs; their recording accompanies a Yale University Press publication, Listening to Classical American Popular Songs, by Allen Forte. In 1991 he helped found the Mirror Visions Ensemble and appeared with it in the United States and abroad.
In 2006 Mr. Lalli was awarded the Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities at Yale University. His recording of Yehudi Wyner’s The Mirror was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005. In 2010 he was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by the Yale School of Music
Vera Danchenko-Stern
Pianist Vera Danchenko-Stern graduated with honors from Moscow's prestigious Gnessin Institute of Music in piano, solo performance, chamber music, vocal, and instrumental accompaniment. Ms. Danchenko-Stern served as the teacher of the "Russian Lyrics and Diction" class at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. from 1992 til 2002. Since 1990, she has also been teaching the "Singing in Russian" class at the faculty of Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
Ms. Danchenko-Stern is the Russian diction coach of the Washington National Opera, collaborating with productions including Tsar's Bride, Boris Godunov, The Queen of Spades, and The Maiden of Orleans. In 2005, Ms. Danchenko-Stern founded the Russian Chamber Art Society, which presents concert series dedicated to Russian vocal music rarely heard in America. In 2008, she was nominated for the Governor's Award for the Arts in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Ken Weiss
Ken Weiss joined the music staff of Washington National Opera in 1998. His work as coach and assistant conductor for the company includes more than 20 world premieres with the American Opera Initiative. Since 2004 he has served as principal coach of the Cafritz Young Artists, whose graduates work in theaters around the world. Other credits as coach and lecturer include the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Alison Moritz
Alison Moritz’s productions have been lauded as “astute,” “imaginative,” and “elegantly sexy” by Opera News. Her 2019-2020 season includes mainstage debuts at Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Omaha, the Ravinia Festival, and Rice University. Upcoming projects include new productions for Glimmerglass, Chicago Opera Theatre, Opera Santa Barbara, a world premiere for Experiments in Opera (NYC). Her exciting future projects range from revisionist versions of baroque works to operas in virtual reality.
Recent directing highlights include the world premieres of Kamala Sankaram’s Taking Up Serpents (Washington National Opera), Chunky in Heat (Experiments in Opera), and Sarah Kirkland Snyder’s Penelope (new performing edition for Lyric Opera of Kansas City). Her production of Bernstein’s Candide was featured at the 2018 Tanglewood Festival as part of the composer’s centennial celebration, and won several regional awards (including Best Director). Alison also recently directed highly praised period productions of La Traviata (Opera Colorado), La Bohème (Austin Opera), and Madama Butterfly (Central City Opera).
Committed to contemporary American repertoire, Alison has workshopped pieces by David Hertzberg and Rene Orth for Opera Philadelphia, directed the world premiere of Proving Up by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek (Washington National Opera), and created a new production of Kevin Puts’ opera version of The Manchurian Candidate for Austin Opera. Alison’s professional credits include engagements with Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and Atlanta Opera, and her teaching experience includes projects at Bard Conservatory, SUNY Potsdam, and Eastman School of Music.
Rob Ainsley
Active as an opera fanatic and factotum since 2001, Rob Ainsley has explored every facet of the art form across the country, and lives to pass on his enthusiasm to others. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, Mannes College of Music, and the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. Since then, he has been Co-founder and Principal Conductor of the Greenwich Music Festival, a guest Chorus Master at English National Opera, Associate Music Director at Portland Opera, Head of Music Staff and Chorus Master at Minnesota Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and a faculty member at Westminster Choir College’s CoOPERAtive Program. He is now the Director of the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program and the American Opera Initiative, seeking out and grooming the finest young American singers, composers, and librettists for international careers.
His artists have performed on the world’s leading stages, won the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, been finalists in Operalia, and performed with him at the 2018 White House State Dinner for the President of France. He has conducted his own realizations of seventeenth-century operas, collaborated on world premieres, raved about art song in recital series of his own creation, and lectured on everything from Adams to Zemlinsky. Through it all, he has inspired hundreds of young artists and thousands of audience members to share his passion, and prides himself on the friendships he has formed along the way.