Daune Mahy Professor of Singing at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Director of the Oberlin in Italy Program. She has appeared frequently with opera companies and orchestras in the Mid-West and the East, including Opera Omaha, the Kentucky Opera Association, the St. Louis Municipal Opera, the Nebraska Opera Ensemble, the Kenley Players, the Stephen Foster Drama Association, the Cleveland Ch amber Symphony, the Akron Symphony, the Nebraska Sinfonia, the Opus I Chamber Orchestra, Trinity Players, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. She has also appeared with the Rome Festival Orchestra, the Louisville Bach Society, the Toledo Choral Arts Society, and the Nebraska Choral Arts Society. Ms. Mahy made her New York Debut Recital at Merkin Hall, and has also appeared at Carnegie Recital Hall and Kurt Weill Recital Hall in New York. The soprano has presented recitals in Germany, Spain, and Italy. Ms. Mahy was the soprano soloist in a nationally syndicated radio broadcast of Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” marking the 20th anniversary of that work’s first performance. Ms. Mahy holds BM and MM degrees from Westminster Choir College and a DM from Indiana University. She has had additional training at the Hamburg (Germany) Hochschule f. Musik, Academie d’Ete (France), Musik Seminar (Weimar), and Centro Studi (Italy). Her teachers include Vera Rozsa, Zinka Milanov, Margaret Harshaw, Gianna D’Angelo, Richard Miller, and Helen Hodam. Coaches include Walter Bricht, Dalton Baldwin, John Wustman, H. Schmnidt-Bolinger, Carlo Morganti, Giuseppe Giardina, and Robin Bowman. Ms. Mahy’s students have won the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions and have taken positions with the Met Young Artists Program and the Chicago Lyric Young Artist Program. Ms. Mahy's students have been selected to participate in summer programs such as the Merola Program, Santa Fe, St. Louis, Wolf Trap, and Chautauqua. In addition, she has students singing at the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, New York City Opera, and many regional theaters in the United States.
Bridget-Michaele Reischl is the Music Director of the Oberlin College Conservatory Orchestras where she conducts The Oberlin Orchestra and The Oberliin Chamber Orchestra and teaches conducting. She has served as Music Director for the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra since 2001. Ms. Reischl was the first American to win the Antonio Pedrotti International Conducting Competition in 1995. Since then, she has become an active guest conductor both internationally and throughout the United States. Some of her more recent engagements have included the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Dayton Philharmonic, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, as well as numerous orchestras throughout Italy and Greece. Ms. Reischl is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. As a student of Robert Spano, she continued her studies as a conducting fellow at both the Aspen Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Festival where she worked with Seiji Ozawa, David Zinman, and Murray Sidlin. Ms. Reischl is recorded on the following labels: Velut Luna, CRI, and Sea Breeze Record Company.
Edward Crafts brings to his work with Oberlin in Italy students the rare combination of training and professional activity as both a stage director and a singer. He holds degrees in Voice from Curtis and in Opera Stage Directing from Indiana, and has practiced in both fields through out a distinguished career. Mr. Crafts was the founder of the Maryland Lyric Opera, for which he directed a dozen productions in half a dozen years. Before that, he directed the University of Nebraska Opera Theater and instructed young professional singers in the apprentice program of the Santa Fe Opera. His directing work with US regional companies has included such major challenges as Aida and Falstaff. As a singer, Mr. Crafts has performed for many years at the Metropolitan Opera and with major companies across the country, and also at Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, Rome Opera and elsewhere in Europe. His repertoire includes most of the leading Wagner baritone characters, including two complete Ring cycles as Wotan, French roles such as Golaud in Pelleas and the villains in Hoffmann, and the major Italian buffi. Among his many operatic premieres, he takes special pride in Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place, which he has also recorded for DGG.
Enza Ferrari was born in Milan where, at age fifteen, she received her Diploma in Piano Studies from the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory. She graduated in Composition from the same institution a few years later. She has also studied Orchestral Direction under the mentorship of Maestro Antonino Votto. She received five grants from the City of Milan and three other endowments from the Project "Vacanze Musicali" in Venice.
Her work and performances have been broadcasted and documented by radio and television stations in Italy, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Mexico. She participated at numerous Festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh, Holland, Macau, and Italy (Estati Musicali di Verona, Fiesole, Citta' di Castello, Valle d'Itria, and several others). She works with publishing houses and record labels such as Curci, Fabbri, Ensayo, Rivo Alto, and others. She collaborated and accompanied on piano singers like Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Renato Capecchi, Nicola Rossi Lemeni, Bianca Maria Casoni, Ghena Dimitrova, Nicola Martinucci, Maria Chiara, Maria Luisa Nave, Alfredo Mariotti, Vincenzo Bello, Gianfranco Cecchele, Beniamino Prior, Giovanni Furlanetto, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Giorgio Surian, Elisabetta Tandura and, among the upcoming new talents, Walter Fraccaro, Young Ok Shin, Vivica Genaux, Kathy McCalla.
Milan Vitek was professor of violin at the Royal Music Academy in Copenhagen (1974-2001) and a guest professor at the Music Academy in Göteborg, Sweden (1992-2001). Before moving to Denmark in 1968, Milan Vítek was a founding member, concert master and soloist of the Prague Chamber Soloists, and a member of the Czech Nonet and the piano trio “Pro Camera.” In Denmark, he was alternate concert master at the Danish Royal Opera. Following two years as a professor at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada), Milan Vitek returned to Denmark to take up his position at the Royal Music Academy. Milan Vítek is much in demand for master classes in such cities as Aldeburgh (England), Keshet Eilon (Israel), Yokosuka Festival (Japan) a Yuriko Kuronuma Academy (Mexico City), Weikersheim (Germany) and Savonlinna (Finland) as well as a judge of international violin competitions in Denmark , Germany, Japan, Estonia and Italy. His students are winners and laureates of many international competitions such as the Carl Nielsen, J. Kocian, Heino Eller a The Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Washington International String Competition, Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, and Jean Sibelius. Milan Vitek is currently professor of violin at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The Czech audience knows him also as a conductor, which regularly performs here as a guest mainly with the Symphony Orchestra of Czech Radio.
Roland Pandolfi was appointed Profesor of Horn at Oberlin Conservatory in 2001. Prior
to that he was
principal horn of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for 35 years. During that time he taught
at the St. Louis
Conservatory of Music, Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville, and two years at
Northwestern University.
His former students hold positions in the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, the St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the orchestras
of Tenerife, Mexico
City, Tucson, and Bogota.
Mr. Pandolfi was performer and teacher at the Banff Centre in Canada for fifteen years
and spent two
summers at the Affinis Seminar in Japan. He has performed double concertos with Barry
Tuckwell, Hermann
Baumann and Froydis Re Wekre. His solo performances with the St. Louis Symphony include
concertos of Mozart,
Haydn, Strauss, Bernard Heiden, and the Britten Serenade for tenor, horn and strings.
His discography includes the Mozart Horn Quintet, the Mozart and Beethoven piano
quintets on the Vox
label, and the Saint-Saens Morceau de Concert with Michael Kim for Summit Records. He can
also be heard on
dozens of recordings by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Sally Stunkel, presently, one of foremost acting teachers for opera singers in America, has directed for Sacramento Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Skylight Opera, the Aspen Music Festival, Kentucky Opera and Four Corners Opera and has over 90 productions to her credit as a director As a former opera singer, she has sung with the Colorado Springs Opera, Skylight Opera and Baltimore Opera. From over 15 years in dance training, she has also choreographed various operas. A graduate of Cincinnati Conservatory (where she received the National Opera Association’s award for best opera for her productions of The Consul and Postcard from Morocco), she has headed the Opera programs at the former St. Louis Conservatory of Music, the University of Tennessee, the University of the Pacific in California and the University of Iowa, where she won 1st place for her Marriage of Figaro from the National Opera Association. She was a visiting Associate Professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music for two years where her production of Dialogues of the Carmelites was nominated by Cleveland Live for best music theater production of 2006. She has taught and directed with the Apprentice Programs at the Des Moines Opera, Chattauqua Opera, the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada and the Aspen Music Festival.
Tenor Salvatore
Champagne began his professional singing
career as soloist for the European tour of Songfest,
composed and conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Immediately
thereafter he joined the ensemble of the Badisches
Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany, appearing in
a wide range of lyric tenor roles including Mozart's
Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Rossini's Almaviva
(Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Strauss's Henry (Die
schweigsame Frau). Guest engagements soon brought
him to some of Europe's most prestigious opera houses:
the Operhaus Zürich, Opéra du Rhin in
Strasbourg, Teatro Bellini in Catania, and the Bayerische
Staatsoper in Munich. In addition to his operatic
performances, Mr. Champagne is a frequent concert
and recital singer. He has appeared with the London
Philharmonia, Cologne Philharmonic, and VARA radio
orchestra under such noted conductors as James Conlon,
Leonard Slatkin and Henry Lewis. His singing has
been recognized with numerous awards, including prizes
at the 1989 Mirjam Helin Competition in Helsinki
and the 1990 International Vocal Competition in s'Hertogenbosch,
Holland, and grants from MUSICA, the Sullivan Foundation,
and the National Institute for Musical Theater. In
2004 Mr. Champagne joined the voice faculty of his
alma mater, the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music,
as Associate Professor of Singing.
Marlene Ralis Rosen Widely praised for her rare and versatile artistry, lyric soprano Marlene Ralis Rosen has been consistently applauded by critics and audiences alike for the beauty of her voice and for the sensitivity of her interpretations. A highly versatile and individual artist, Ms. Rosen is equally at home singing the music of Bach, Händel, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Strauss, and Debussy as she is with contemporary composers such as John Cage, Luigi Dallapiccola, Luciano Berio and Joseph Schwantner. Throughout the United States, the soprano is well known for her many appearances in oratorio, chamber music, and solo recitals. Among orchestral appearances, she was soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic under the direction of Robert Spano and has appeared as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony and the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra with whom she recently released a CD on the Albany Label. She has also collaborated with such composers as Lukas Foss, John Harbison, Luciano Berio and George Crumb. In addition, she worked with Pierre Boulez in a performance of Improvisations sur Mallarmé with the New Music Associates of Cleveland. No stranger to the operatic stage, Ms. Rosen has sung in Don Giovanni, Tosca, Turn Of The Screw, Carmen, Cosi Fan Tutte, Die Fledermaus and others. Significant recital appearances include her New York solo recital debut at the Merkin Recital Hall in 1992, recitals at the Cleveland Art Museum, and a concert with the Quintet of the Americas again at Merkin Hall in New York. She was also soprano soloist for several seasons with the William Appling Singers performing such works as the Fauré Requiem, Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, Haydn Theresa Mass, the Bach B minor Mass and the Handel Messiah. She is also soprano soloist with the Ensemble Pierrot, a faculty ensemble at Oberlin Conservatory. Ms. Rosen has also been heard in Europe with frequent appearances in Holland, Germany, Italy and Finland - notably the Turku Music Festival in 1988 - and was privileged to concertize and offer Masterclasses in Beijing, China at the Central Conservatory. She also teaches at the Oberlin in Italy Program in Urbania, Italy. Marlene Ralis Rosen holds a Masters Degree from the University of Illinois and was Midwest Regional Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions. She is also the recipient of the Rosanna M.Enlow Award for Voice. Ms Rosen is Professor of Voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music since 1989. She was also a Visiting Instructor of Voice, 1996-97, at the Eastman School of Music.
Friedrich GUrtler studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music from 1953-1956. After receiving his diploma, he went on to complete the postgraduate soloist class in 1957. Gürtler studied with Edwin Fischer, Paul Badura-Skoda and Alfred Brendel. He was lecturer at the Royal Danish Academy of Music (1969-1998) and in 1975 was appointed Principal, where he continued in post until 1979. He was also Principal at the Opera Academy (1994-1999). In 1998, he was appointed Professor of Piano at The Royal Academy of Music, specializing in accompaniment and coaching. He has performed as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist in Scandinavia, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, London, Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester on radio and television. He has appeared with many well-known artists including Boris Christoff, Irmgard Seefried, Michael Rabin, Mstislav Rosropovich, Ernst Haefliger, Thomas Hemsley, Norma Procter, Robert Tear, Elisabeth Söder-ström, and Janet Baker. Several recordings of Danish vocal and chamber music.
Danielle Orlando is currently the principal opera coach at The Curtis Institute of Music and serves as master vocal coach on the music faculty of The Academy of Vocal Arts. Ms. Orlando has collaborated with renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti as accompanist, judge, and artistic coordinator for all of the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competitions. She spent nine seasons working with Gian Carlo Menotti for the Festival dei due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy as an assistant conductor and coach. She is associated with a long list of opera companies, festivals, and young artist programs which include the Metropolitan Opera; Washington Opera; Michigan Opera Theater; Opera Company of Philadelphia; Pittsburgh Opera; Wolf Trap Opera Company; Festival dei due Mondi in Charleston, South Carolina; American Institute for Music Studies in Graz, Austria; European Center for Vocal Arts in Belgium; the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera; and the Portland Opera Performing Institute. She has also acted as a guest judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Ms. Orlando began her music studies at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia and continued at the Eastman School of Music in New York. She earned a master of music degree in piano performance at Temple University and performs frequently as an accompanist in the United States and abroad. Ms. Orlando accompanies internationally recognized artists such as Marcello Giordani, Alessandra Marc, Kallen Esperian, and Aprile Millo. She has been seen on Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Live by Request on A&E and the Rosie O’Donnell Show.
UMBERTO
FINAZZI Born in Bergamo, he graduated in
piano studies with the highest honors from the Conservatorio
G. Verdi di Milano.He completed his solo piano studies
with Maestro K. Bogino and studied orchestral conducting
with
Maestro J. Kalmar.He has worked for several years
as an assistant conductor in the principal theaters
of Italy in the capacity
of pianist as well as musical director of the orchestra
and chorus.Since 1978 he has performed hundreds of
concerts in Italy, France, Germany, England, Switzerland,
the Czech Republic, Austria, Holland, South Africa,
Korea, China, Taiwan and the United States as a soloist
and as an accompanist in chamber music and for singers,
often in collaboration with artists of international
fame.Presently he is the maestro of Vocal Repertoire
for the young artist program at La Scala (Accademia
di
Perfezionamento per Cantanti Lirici) as well as the
head of the courses entitled “Prassi Esecutiva
e Repertorio Teatrale” and “Tecniche
di Direzione e Concertazione” for pianists
in the Conservatorio G. Verdi di Milano.He has given
many master classes in Italian opera repertoire in
Italy and internationally and collaborates
with Maestro K. Bogino in courses given for the completion
of piano studies in Bergamo (Corsi di Alto Perfezionamento
di Pianoforte).
Daniele piatelli has twenty years of experience as pianist, vocal coach and conductor.
Currently, he is engaged as a repetiteur at the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen. In the
recent past, he has collaborated with institutions such as the Caramoor Festival, Palm Beach
Opera, Sarasota Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, San
Francisco Opera Center, Arena di Verona, Teatro Municipal Santiago.
A native of Florence, Italy, Daniele Piattelli graduated from the Cherubini Conservatory
with a degree in piano performance, and completed a three-year postgraduate program with
Bruno Canino in Seveso. He received a four-year Composition degree from the Milan
Conservatory and studied conducting with J. Panula, D. Gilbert and J. Colaneri. In the fall 2002, Daniele Piattelli joined the music staff at Manhattan School, while
teaching Italian at the Scuola Italiana del Village and collaborating as coach and cover
conductor with numerous companies and universities around the US and abroad; among
these are the Caramoor Festival, the Palm Beach Opera, Sarasota Opera, Chicago Opera
Theater, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Yale University, Fletcher Institute, Bronx
Opera, Assisi Festival, Operaworks.
Daniele Piattelli is bilingual in Italian and English, and has a good knowledge of of
French, German, Spanish and Danish.
Howard Lubin Howard Lubin earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Arts degree in German literature from Oberlin’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1975. At the completion of his graduate studies at the Juilliard School, he was awarded the Roeder Prize for outstanding pianistic achievement. He was subsequently hired to teach at the Juilliard School’s American Opera Center. His work in European opera houses led to engagements as head music coach at the Cologne Opera and at the Bregenz and Spoleto festivals. Mr. Lubin has accompanied master classes for such renowned artists as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Renata Scotto, and the master classes he accompanied for Sherrill Milnes were released as a commercial videocassette. He teaches piano at the University of Oklahoma, and is a vocal coach at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
LeAnn Overton has enjoyed a busy freelance schedule since moving to New York fourteen years ago. Currently on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the CW Post campus of Long Island University, Ms Overton has also served on the faculties of the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the Chautauqua Voice School, The New York Actor's Studio and the Mannes School of Music. Ms. Overton has worked as musical director/coach for serveral opera companies and summer festivals including Oberlin in Italy, Vocal Arts Symposium of Colorado Springs, Opera Theater and Music Festival of Lucca, Italy, Cincinnati Opera, Tulsa Opera. In addition to her coaching and teaching, Ms Overton works at the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic as surtitle operator. In the fall of 2005 she recorded the cd "Race for the Sky" with soprano Lisa Holsberg featuring music commissioned for the anniversary of 9/11. Ms. Overton has collaborated on several occasions with Alexander Technique instructor Bill Connington in classes specifically for the singer. Ms. Overton earned her Master's degree in Vocal Coaching/Accompanying at the University of Illinois with John Wustman.
Peter
Hauser, designer, has spent the last 25
years collaborating with writers, composers, designers,
inventors, choreographers
and stage directors to realize their work on the
living stage. Peter collaborated with Maurice Sendak
and Frank Corsaro as scenic designer for productions
of Hansel and Gretel at Houston Opera and the Zurich
Opera. He has designed lights for the Martha Graham
Company, Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project
and the New York City Opera National Company. In
2002 he worked with Chuck Hoberman to execute a 72’ mechanical
curtain for the awards ceremony at the 2002 Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City. Since then Peter has
designed numerous corporate projects, festivals and
events throughout the world.
Scott skibaSkiba has sung with the Indianapolis Opera, Opera Circle Cleveland, Oberlin Opera Theater, Olney Theater Center, DuPage Opera Theater, Indiana University Opera Theater, Opera Western and the Pittsburgh Opera where his performance credits include the title roles in Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro and Eugene Onégin, Escamillo (Carmen), Iago (Otello), Mandryka (Arabella), Pirate King (Pirates of Penzance), Giorgio Germont (La Traviata), Baron Zeta and Cascada (The Merry Widow), Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus), Marcello (La Boheme), King Melchior (Amahl and the Night Visitors) and Michele (Il Tabarro). Skiba is also an accomplished performer of new and 20th century operatic and musical theater works including the title role in Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Tarquinius (The Rape of Lucretia), Captain Balstrode (Peter Grimes), Horace Tabor (The Ballad of Baby Doe), Archibald Craven (The Secret Garden) and Marco (A View From the Bridge). His concert and Oratorio performances include soloist in Carmina Burana, the St. John Passion, Israel in Egypt, Messiah, In Terra Pax and Christmas Oratorio, andfeatured soloist with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, Akron Symphony, Cleveland Philharmonic, Oberlin Black River Singers, Cleveland Choral Arts Society, Columbus Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Skiba has recently joined the faculty of the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera Workshop. Previously he was as Assistant Instructor of Voice at Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music where he also recently completed doctoral coursework in voice with Timothy Noble, and opera stage direction with Vince Liotta. Skiba began his vocal training with Mr. Greg Biddle in Pittsburgh, Pa and earned a bachelor of music degree in vocal performance with Daune Mahy and a master of music degree in opera theater with Jonathan Field from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Skiba will be on the voice faculty of the Baldwin-Wallace Summer Musical Theater Intensive in July and will perform Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Circle Cleveland in November.
