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     | Masterclass Faculty
Ellen Faull Masterclass Series |
Edith Bers's students perform with major opera companies, orchestras, and festivals throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and the opera companies of Santa Fe, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Glimmerglass, Wolftrap, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komishe Oper Berlin, Bordeaux, Canadian Opera Company, Glyndebourne, Hamburg, Paris, Vienna Staatsoper, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Saito Kinen Festival, Ravinia Festival, and numerous Metropolitan Opera HD performances. Her students have won the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition, Opera Index, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, Young Concert Artists, Joy in Singing, Giulio Gari, Gerda Lissner, and were finalists in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals and Francisco Vinas International Singing Competition; they've also won the Richard Tucker Award, Richard Tucker Career Grants, Sullivan Grants, the Beverly Sills Award, Guilio Gari, Gerda Lissner, and Richard Gold awards, among others
Her own performing career has spanned opera, recital, oratorio and orchestra appearances in the U.S. and abroad. Ms.Bers has given master classes for the Symposium on the Care of the Professional Voice, Aspen Music Festival, Metropolitan Opera National Council, Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition, Juilliard-Hong Kong (Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts), and the Korean Broadcasting System. She has been an adjudicator for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Brussels), Montreal International Music Competition in Voice, Concert Artists Guild. Eaculty affiliations include The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, Curtis Institute of Music and Bard College Conservatory Graduate Program in Vocal Arts.
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| Born and educated in Germany, Marianne Barrett pursued voice studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich, German and English literature at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. After immigrating to the United States, Ms.Barrett lived in Albuquerque and Santa Fe where she taught at the University of New Mexico, sang in recitals and oratorios, and performed many mezzo roles with the Albuquerque Opera Theater. She was the founder of the UNM German summer school in Taos and acted as co-director and language coordinator for many years. Since coming to New York, she has taught German at Columbia University and Hunter College, German diction at Mannes College, and has coached numerous full-scale opera productions and Lied recitals for music schools and local companies in the area. Marianne Barrett's professional credits include language preparation for Metropolitan Opera productions (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Die Zauberflöte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Ariadne auf Naxos) and for the Santa Fe Opera (Arabella, Zauberflöte, Salome, Daphne, Wozzek), where an important part of her work is with young artists in the apprentice program. Ms. Barrett returns to Santa Fe Opera in 2014 to prepare Fidelio. Currently on leave from her many years of teaching at Manhattan School of Music, Marianne Barrett is a member of the coaching staff of the Metropolitan Opera and is a language instructor and diction coach at The Juilliard School. |  |
| Named chair of the Collaborative Piano Department of The Juilliard School in 2018, pianist Lydia Brown has achieved a wide-ranging career in opera, recital, and chamber music. She holds a DMA from Juilliard and earned piano degrees from Eastman School of Music and Yale University. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she has served regularly as an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera since 2005 and at San Francisco Opera since 2011. Brown has also enjoyed long relationships with Spoleto Festival USA and Gotham Chamber Opera and has overseen the vocal program at the Marlboro Music Festival and School since 2006. Her recital appearances include the Salle Cortot, Grace Rainey Rogers auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Phillips Gallery, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Her previous faculty positions include Yale and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. |  |
American tenor William Burden has won an outstanding reputation in a wide-ranging repertoire throughout Europe and North America, in addition to maintaining a vibrant teaching career. Mr. Burden has been a member of the faculty at the Mannes School of Music since the fall of 2015, and in the fall of 2018, he joined the voice faculty of the Juilliard School of Music. He previously served as Artist-in-Residence at the 2017 Glimmerglass Festival, and this season, he returns to Glimmerglass as their 2020 Artist-in-Residence, singing Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music; Mr. Burden also returns to the San Francisco Opera, to sing Captain Vere in Billy Budd.
Mr. Burden has appeared with the major opera houses in the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, New York City Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Opéra National de Paris, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Thèâtre du Châtelet, Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Berliner Staatsoper. His many roles include the title roles of Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Faust, Pelléas et Mélisande, The Rake's Progress, Roméo et Juliette, Béatrice and Bénédict, Candide, and Acis and Galatea; Loge in Das Rheingold, Laca in Jenufa, Captain Vere in Billy Budd, Aschenbach in Death in Venice, Florestan in Fidelio, Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Don Jose in Carmen, Pylade in Iphigénie en Tauride, Gerald in Lakmé, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore, Nerone in L'incoronazione di Poppea, Ferrando in Cosí fan tutte, Narraboth in Salome, and Lensky in Eugene Onegin.
A supporter of new works, William Burden sang the US premiere of Henze's Phaedra at Opera Philadelphia, and created the roles of George Bailey in the world premiere of Jake Heggie's It's a Wonderful Life at the Houston Grand Opera, Peter in Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene and Dan Hill in Christopher Theofanidis' Heart of a Soldier at the San Francisco Opera, Frank Harris in Theodore Morrison's Oscar at the Santa Fe Opera, Gilbert Griffiths in Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy at the Metropolitan Opera, Dodge in Daron Hagen's Amelia at the Seattle Opera, V.P. Inglesias in Jimmy Lopez' Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Niklas Sprink in Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize- winning Silent Night at the Minnesota Opera.
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With a voice the New York Times has called, “luminous” and “lustrous,” versatile soprano Amy Burton has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, at the White House, and with major opera companies, orchestras, and at concert venues throughout the US, Europe, UK, Japan, Mexico, and Israel. She has recorded for Bridge, Naxos, Harbinger, Albany, Angel/EMI, and CRI, and garnered major prizes from the Gerda Lissner, George London, Sullivan Foundations, and the Marian Anderson International Vocal Competition. A leading soprano with New York City Opera for twelve seasons, she received that company's Christopher Keene Award, the Kolosvar Award, and the Diva Award. Opera America honored her with their first-ever Artist Advocate Award for her work with The Glimmerglass Festival.
Known for her portrayals of Mozart heroines as well as French repertoire in opera, operette, mélodies and chanson populaires, Ms. Burton also performs frequently in recital and cabaret concerts with her husband, composer-pianist John Musto. She has premiered several of Musto’s song cycles and has been a champion of contemporary composers such as Paul Moravec, John Corigliano, William Bolcom, Richard Danielpour, John Harbison, and others.
A sought-after teacher, Ms. Burton is on the voice faculties at The Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music, the CUNY Graduate Center (DMA program), and SongFest, a summer festival devoted to Art Song. She also maintains a busy private voice studio in New York.
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Dr. Corradina Caporello (1944-2023) taught on the faculties of The Juilliard School and The Curtis Institute of Music. She was a frequent guest coach for the Houston Grand Opera and coached Italian operas in the United States, Canada, Italy, Israel and China. Dr. Caporello taught master classes in Taiwan, Japan and Mexico, as well as in the United States. In recent seasons, she prepared operas for both Curtis and Juilliard, including Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi (for Curtis); Juilliard School operas include Gianni Schicchi, Handel's Ariodante, Francesco Cavalli's 1644 opera, La Doriclea; also Le Nozze di Figaro, Falstaff, Don Giovanni, La Finta Giardiniera, as well as a Rossini double-bill, La cambiale di matrimonio and La scala di seta. In 2009, Dr. Caporello helped prepare Natalie Dessay for her first La Traviata with The Santa Fe Opera. She returned to Santa Fe each summer to coach their Italian operas, including Madama Butterfly, La Bohème and Vivaldi's Griselda.
In Memoriam |  |
Pianist Margo Garrett has enjoyed a long and respected career as an internationally performing collaborative pianist in chamber, sonata, and vocal recitals. The large roster of noted artists with whom she has long performing relationships includes sopranos Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Elizabeth Futral, Beverly Hoch, the late Judith Raskin, Lucy Shelton, Dawn Upshaw, Benita Valente, mezzo Shirley Close, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, violinists Jaime Laredo and Daniel Phillips, violist Paul Neubauer, and cellists Sharon Robinson, Matt Haimowitz, and the late Stephen Kates. Her recordings can be found on Albany, CRI, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon (1992 Grammy for Best Vocal Recital), Dorian, Musical Heritage Society, Nonesuch, and Sony Classical.
Miss Garrett is a dedicated leader among educators of collaborative pianists and was a member of The Juilliard School Collaborative Piano Faculty from 1985-1991 as Department Chair and from 2000 to 2018 as a member of the core faculty. She has also formerly headed collaborative programs at New England Conservatory and Westminster Choir College. At the Tanglewood Music Center she directed the vocal fellowship program for the last 6 of her 19 years of teaching there and oversaw the Center's return, after many years, to opera in the 50th Anniversary performances of Britten's Peter Grimes, whose U.S. premiere was at Tanglewood. There she also worked closely with a large international roster of composers in preparation for performances of their music in the annual week-long Festival of Contemporary Music. As Co-Director with her mentor, the late Samuel Sanders, of the Cape and Islands Music Festival, Miss Garrett was awarded the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) Most Creative Programming Award. From 1999 through 2006, Miss Garrett was the Faculty Chair of The Steans Institute for Young Artist's vocal and chamber music programs at Chicago Symphony's Ravinia Festival, where she commissioned major works by leading American composers including Ned Rorem and Jake Heggie. Margo Garrett is enjoying frequent guest residencies in noted schools of music and festivals. She is the creator, first manager, and author of Collab Corner, a regular column devoted to all topics concerning collaborative pianists, in the National Association of Teachers of Singing's Journal of Singing. Ms. Garrett continues to serve as a frequent consultant to schools of music wishing to design new graduate programs of collaborative piano study. |  |
John Giampietro is a Brooklyn based stage director of Opera and Theatre. He is the Associate Director of the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory, where he has directed several operas including The Cunning Little Vixen, Hänsel und Gretel, Le nozze di Figaro, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. John is a Vocal Arts Acting Faculty member at The Juilliard School where he teaches acting across all degree programs. His productions at Juilliard include: The Turn of the Screw, ll Turco in Italia, Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, La fedeltà premiata, and Curlew River. He is a frequent director with Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theater’s Obie-award-winning young writers group. At EST, John directed the NY Times acclaimed production of Year of the Rooster by Olivia Dufault.
John has directed opera and theatre at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Urban Stages, Vermont Shakespeare Festival, Curtis Institute of Music, The Flea Theatre, Shenandoah Conservatory and NYU Tisch School of the Arts, among others. John is a also a current facutly member of The Curtis Institute of Music where he teaches acting in the Vocal Studies and Opera Theater Department. John’s writings include new English dialogue versions of Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor by Otto Nicolai, Mozart's The Impesario and Die Zauberflöte. He has written three plays; The Immolation of Kathy Chang(e), M. of Versailles, and Strength of God and other grotesques, based on Sherwood Anderson’s novel, Winesburg, Ohio.
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Charles Hamlen (July 9, 1943-August 1, 2018), was one of the most respected professionals in the world of arts management and administration. A 1965 graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in French Language and Literature, Hamlen began his professional life as a high school French teacher. After 11 years in the classroom, with an interim year of graduate study at the Sorbonne in Paris, he moved in 1977 to New York to pursue artist management, founding Hamlen/Landau Management with his business partner Edna Landau in 1979. Five years later, the company was acquired by the International Management Group, becoming IMG Artists, where he looked after the careers of artists including violinists Joshua Bell, Leila Josefowicz and Itzhak Perlman; the Emerson String Quartet; and pianists Stephen Hough, Evgeny Kissin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and André Watts. In 1993, Hamlen left IMG Artists to found Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS. After 16 years at the helm of Classical Action, he returned to IMG Artists where he served as chairman until 2012. From 2012 until his death in 2018, he was Artistic Advisor for New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's, and for the Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, Montana. Charles Hamlen's numerous honors include the 1998 Jerry Willis Award from the Western Arts Alliance, the 2000 Eos Orchestra's Michael Palm Award, the International Society for the Performing Arts' 2004 'Angel Award' and the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named a 'Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres' by the French government in 2004.
In Memoriam |  |
| Kayo Iwama, Head of Program for the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard Conservatory, has performed extensively with singers such as Christópheren Nomura, Lucy Shelton and Dawn Upshaw throughout North America, Europe, and Japan, in venues such as the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall, the Gardner Museum, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, Tokyo's Yamaha Hall, and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. She was previously on the music staffs of the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, The Tanglewood Music Center, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and has held teaching positions at the Hartt School of Music, the Boston Conservatory and the New England Conservatory of Music. She earned a Bachelors of Music degree at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Masters of Music at SUNY Stony Brook, where she studied with Gilbert Kalish as a Graduate Council Fellow. She also attended the Salzburg Music Festival, the Banff Music Center, the Music Academy of the West, and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she worked with such artists as Margo Garrett, Martin Isepp, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, and Erik Werba. Formerly a resident of Boston for many years, she was featured numerous times on WGBH radio and was pianist and music director of the critically acclaimed Cantata Singers Chamber Series, programs devoted to rarely heard works of art song and vocal chamber music. Iwama can be heard on CD on the Well-Tempered label, with baritone Christópheren Nomura in Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin, and on two ISMM discs devoted to French mélodies and the songs of Schumann with tenor Ingul Ivan Oak. |  |
Paul E. Kwak is a laryngologist and laryngeal surgeon at the NYU Voice Center, and Assistant Professor in the NYU Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, specializing in care of the professional voice and phonomicrosurgical resection of benign vocal fold lesions. He treats patients with vocal cord cancer, vocal cord paralysis, and laryngeal papilloma, and is experienced in surgical techniques for laryngeal microsurgery and use of the KTP laser. Dr. Kwak completed his clinical fellowship in laryngeal surgery with Dr. Steven Zeitels at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and his residency in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he earned a master's degree in Collaborative Piano with Margo Garrett, studying vocal accompanying and opera coaching.
In 2003, Kwak graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where he studied the history of medicine and medical ethics and wrote an honors thesis on the history of trust in the physician-patient relationship. Kwak spent a year abroad at Oxford University, on fellowship from Harvard, where he earned a master's degree in Comparative Social Policy, writing an honors dissertation on patients' rights legislation in the United States and in the United Kingdom. In February 2006, Kwak was awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and in May 2006, the Helen Fay Prize for Outstanding Pianist at Juilliard. He is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where he was named the 2010 Outstanding Graduating Medical Student.
Dr. Kwak's clinical and research interests center on the care of the professional voice, and his most recent publications examine physiologic and acoustic effects of opera performance, in ongoing collaborations with The Juilliard School, The Metropolitan Opera, and the Houston Grand Opera. Additionally, his work focuses on phonomicrosurgical approaches to benign subepithelial vocal fold pathology, paralytic dysphonia, and recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. |  |
| Kathryn LaBouff's extensive credits as an English diction coach include The Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Merola Program of San Francisco Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Lincoln Center Festival, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, and Opera Lyra Ottawa, among others. Dr. LaBouff has prepared premieres of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy for The Metropolitan Opera; Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree, Mark Adamo's Little Women, Lysistrata and André Previn's Brief Encounter for Houston Grand Opera; Central Park for Glimmerglass Opera and Nico Muhly's Dark Sisters for Gotham Chamber Opera. She has given master classes for Houston Grand Opera, Vancouver Opera Ensemble and Opera Theater of St. Louis. Dr. LaBouff teaches at Opera on the Avalon, The Banff Centre and Dolora Zajick's Institute for Young Dramatic Voices; she is currently on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. |  |
An internationally renowned recitalist, Marlena Malas (1936-2023) graduated from the voice program of The Curtis Institute of Music in 1960. She performed with the Metropolitan Opera Studio and was affiliated with opera companies in New York City; Santa Fe; Boston; Miami; Washington, D.C.; and Milwaukee. She was a soloist with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra and appeared at the Marlboro and Casals festivals. Ms. Malas served as chair of the voice department at the Chautauqua Institution and was a faculty member of the Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music. She gave master classes in connection with the Metropolitan Opera and at New National Theatre in Tokyo, Pittsburgh Opera young artists program, Boston University, Blossom Music Festival, San Francisco Opera Center, Santa Fe Opera, European Center for Opera and Vocal Arts in Brussels, Israel Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, and (with Joan Sutherland and Luigi Alva) Australian Opera in Sydney. She was a consultant to the Canadian Opera Center; Fletcher Opera Institute, where she also gave master classes; and Washington Opera Young Artist Program, where she was also a teacher.
In Memoriam |  |
| JoAnne Olian is Curator Emeritus of the costume collection of the Museum of the City of New York, where she served from 1974 until 1994. During her tenure at the Museum of the City of New York, Ms. Olian conceived and mounted more than a dozen costume exhibitions, including Ladies' Mile: Emporia and Entertainments and The House of Worth: The Gilded Age 1860-1918. A frequent guest curator at the Nassau County Museum of Art, Ms. Olian mounted Art and Fashion from Marie Antoinette to Jacqueline Kennedy and Iris Apfel: Rare Bird of Fashion. She has lectured on the history of costume at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. She has been visiting lecturer for the Parsons School of Design in Paris and has presented papers before the International Council of Museums in Budapest, London Mexico City and New York. Ms. Olian is the author of sixteen books on the subject of fashion for Dover Publications. Among her titles are Everyday Fashions of the Forties from Sears, Authentic French Fashions of the Twenties from L'Art et La Mode, Children's Fashion, 1860-1912, Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from La Mode Illustrée 1860-1914 and Montgomery Ward Fashions, 1920's. |  |
| Founder and Managing Director of Étude Arts, Bill Palant manages some of the world's most acclaimed classical artists. His clients appear at the world's greatest performing arts institutions and many have been recorded by the most distinguished media labels in the industry. Before establishing Étude Arts in 2015, Bill Palant was Senior Vice President at IMG Artists, where he served for nearly nineteen years. He also has worked for the Metropolitan Opera's Rehearsal Department and for the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. He was graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in psychology. |  |
Nicolò Sbuelz is an opera pianist, coach, and assistant conductor from Udine, Italy. He joined the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera in 2021 as Italian diction coach and Staff Music Coach for the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He has worked as an assistant conductor, diction coach, prompter, répétiteur, and chorus master with internationally acclaimed opera houses and festivals such as Teatro alla Scala (Milan, Italy), Opéra National de Lyon (Lyon, France), Holland Festival (Amsterdam, Nederland), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria), Co-Opera Co. (London, United Kingdom), Houston Grand Opera, Charleston Opera Theater, Sarasota Opera. Currently, he is regularly invited to serve on the music staff of Opera Theater of Saint Louis and Wolf Trap Opera, where he has been the Italian consultant and coach since 2017.
A devoted educator, Mr. Sbuelz teaches classes in Italian diction and vocal literature at both Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School.
Mr. Sbuelz is a graduate of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, where he trained under the supervision of Enza Ferrari, Dante Mazzola, Vincenzo Scalera, and James Vaughn. He received undergraduate degrees in piano and composition from the Conservatorio “G. Tartini” in Trieste, Italy, as well as a Master’s degree in musicology with a concentration in “Aesthetics and the Cross-Cultural Reception of Music and Languages” from the University of Pavia. In the United States, Mr. Sbuelz was a Teaching Assistant at the University of Georgia, a Coaching Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival as well as an Apprentice Coach with the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco.
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| Cristina Stanescu was born in Craiova, Romania where she began piano studies at the age of 6. She has appeared both as a soloist and as a collaborative pianist in concerts throughout Eastern Europe and the United States. As a vocal coach and recitalist, she has worked with such artists as Stephanie Blythe, Anthony Griffey, Angelika Kirchschlager, Bejun Mehta, Anna Moffo, Teresa Santiago, Carlo Scibelli, Renata Scotto, Lucy Shelton, Veronica Villaroel, Jon Villars and Rachel Watkins; conductors such as Louis Langrée, Gerard Schwartz, Kurt Masur and Sir Neville Marriner; directors such as Colin Graham, Jonathan Miller and Peter Sellars. A passionate teacher of art song as well as opera, Ms. Stanescu has taught at Yale University, New York University, and the Bucharest Academy of Music (Romania). Presently, she is on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music. She is the founding director of the Collaborative Piano Program at Mannes, which produced students now active in the collaborative field at the Metropolitan Opera and on Broadway. She has had professional affiliations with the New York Philharmonic, the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Renata Scotto Opera Academy, Juilliard Opera Center, and was an assistant conductor for seven years with the Lyric Theatre of Craiova. Ms. Stanescu holds a Masters degree and Doctorate in Accompaniment from the Juilliard School, with a dissertation entitled Preparing the role of Oedipe in the opera Oedipe by George Enescu; a vocal coach's work. She also holds a Masters degree in Piano performance from the Bucharest Academy of Music (Romania).
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Erika Switzer is an accomplished pianist who collaborates regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall (Carnegie), Geffen Hall, Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC). Her performances have been called “precise and lucid” by the New York Times, and Renaud Machart of Le Monde described her as “one of the best collaborative pianists I have ever heard; her sound is deep, her interpretation intelligent, refined, and captivating.”
From 2000-2007, Switzer performed and studied in Germany, an experience that profoundly inspired and shaped her work. During that time, she appeared at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and in the Munich Winners & Masters series and won numerous awards, including best pianist prizes at the Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and Wigmore Hall International Song Competitions.
Switzer has long been a leader in envisioning and promoting the future of art song performance. In 2009, in collaboration with soprano Martha Guth, she founded the organization Sparks & Wiry Cries, which curates opportunities for song creators and performers, commissions new works, presents the songSLAM festival in New York City, and publishes The Art Song Magazine. She is also devoted to new music, and has recently premiered new compositions in the 5 Boroughs Music Festival Songbook II; at the Brooklyn Art Song Society; and at Vancouver’s Music on Main.
Switzer collaborates with a range of top singers and instrumentalists. A frequent collaborator is baritone Tyler Duncan, and as a duo, Switzer and Duncan have performed in major concert halls and music festivals around the world. She is also an active teacher, serving on the music faculty at Bard College and the Vocal Arts Program of the Bard Conservatory of Music. Switzer holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School, and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.
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A respected and sought-after voice teacher, Dr. Robert C. White Jr. is the author of several articles on voice pedagogy and vocal repertory for The Journal of Voice, The Music Educators Journal, and The American Music Teacher; co-author (with Ruth Lakeway) of Italian Art Song, a study of contemporary Italian song. He holds a B.M. from Susquehanna University in choral and vocal music education, and master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University in voice pedagogy. Dr. White has performed in recitals, oratorio and chamber music performances in the New York metropolitan area and given lecture-recitals and master classes throughout the United States, Canada, and Germany.
Formerly Professor of Music for 31 years at CUNY-Queens College and the Graduate Center, Dr. White has taught at The Juilliard School since 2006. He has also taught at Mannes College of Music, N.Y.U., and with the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program of the Metropolitan Opera. His students have performed at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opéra National de Paris-Bastille, Covent Garden, La Scala, Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper, and many other regional American and European theaters and concert halls. His students have won first prizes in major American and European competitions, including the Cardiff International Singer of the Year Competition, George London Foundation, Young Concert Artist Guild Competitions, among many others.
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Widely recognized as one of today's leading collaborative pianists, Brian Zeger has performed with many of the world's greatest singers including Marilyn Horne, Deborah Voigt, Anna Netrebko, Susan Graham, René Pape, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Frederica von Stade, Piotr Beczala, Bryn Terfel, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves and Adrianne Pieczonka in an extensive concert career that has taken him to the premiere concert halls throughout the United States and abroad.
In addition to a distinguished chamber and concert career, Mr. Zeger also serves as Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Department at The Juilliard School. He has previously served as the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artists Development Program and recently completed a ten-year tenure as the director of the vocal program at the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. He has been on the faculties of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Chautauqua Institute, the Mannes College of Music and the Peabody Conservatory and has given master classes for numerous institutions, including The Guildhall School of Music in London, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and the Marilyn Horne Foundation.
Some of his critical essays and other writings have appeared in Opera News, The Yale Review and Chamber Music magazine. He has appeared frequently on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts both on the opera quiz and as intermission host and performer. He has the distinction of creating, narrating and performing in five intermission features devoted to art song, a first in the long history of the Met broadcasts. He has adjudicated the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Concert Artists Guild auditions, the Walter W. Naumberg Vocal Competition and the Richard Tucker Music Foundation auditions. His recordings may be heard on the Delos, EMI Classics, New World, Naxos and Koch record labels, he most recent recording being A Lost World - Schubert Songs and Duets with Susanna Phillips and Shenyang. Born in upstate New York, Mr. Zeger is now a resident of Manhattan. He holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Harvard College, a master's degree from The Juilliard School and a doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music. His important teachers have included Morris Borenstein, Sascha Gorodnitzki and Nina Svetlanova.
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Core Faculty |
Donna Gill, Co-Director and Coach
Originally from Cut Knife, Saskatchewan, pianist Donna Gill is an enthusiastic, transplanted New Yorker, who has performed with singers and instrumentalists throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Dr. Gill holds a DMA in Collaborative Piano from the University of Minnesota, and completed further studies with Margo Garrett and Brian Zeger at The Juilliard School.
Donna Gill currently teaches Diction and Song Literature on the faculties of Mannes College/The New School, The Aaron Copland School of Music/Queens College, NYU Steinhardt, Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, and The Juilliard School Evening Division, and has done language preparation for English opera productions at both Mannes and at The Juilliard School. She has been a member of the coaching staff of the Vocal Arts department at The Juilliard School, and was a member of the Voice/Opera faculty and Director of Opera Workshop at Temple University from 2011-2017.
Since 2003, Dr. Gill has been both a member of the coaching staff for the Chautauqua Institution Summer School Voice program, and now serves as Head Coach and Scheduling administrator. She is co-founder and co-director (with soprano Jane Olian) of Classical Singing and New York in June, a program for young singers and pianists in New York City, which just completed it's eleventh season; Donna Gill also coaches at the Académie La Roche d'Hys in Vitteaux (Bourgogne), France.
In addition to her university and conservatory affiliations, Donna Gill maintains an active schedule as a freelance artist and vocal coach, and is a frequent and enthusiastic performer of contemporary music in New York City, where she makes her home.
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A versatile and acclaimed artist, Canadian pianist Joel Harder is in great demand as collaborator, pedagogue, vocal coach and chamber musician, having performed throughout Canada, the United States, England and continental Europe. Equally at home in performance of chamber music, song and operatic repertoire, Mr. Harder has performed at Alice Tully Hall, the Caramoor Centre for the Arts, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Bishopsgate Hall, and the Beethoven Haus in Baden, Austria. Mr. Harder has worked with Maestros James Conlon, Christoph von Dohnanyi and Lorin Maazel, among others. He has been featured as pianist and coach at the Cincinnati May Festival, the Castleton Festival, Festival Lyrique Internationale de Belle-Ile en mer, Highlands Opera Studio, Chautauqua Vocal Arts Program and Los Angeles Opera. He has been featured in interviews on WSKG radio, and has given masterclasses on collaborative pianism at Binghamton University, the University of Alberta, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Cornell University and Vanderbilt University. A passionate purveyor of Art Song, Mr. Harder regularly performs with the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS).
In May of 2015, Mr. Harder received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in collaborative piano from The Juilliard School. He wrote his dissertation on the songs of French composer André Caplet, for which he received a Presser Award for research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Mr. Harder joined the faculty at SUNY Binghamton as Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano in August of 2015 where he is heading up graduate program in Collaborative studies.
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Kanae Matsumoto, Vocal Coach
Praised as an “outstanding pianist...unfailingly crisp, warm and sensitive” (Showtime Magazine, Toronto), Kanae Matsumoto enjoys playing solo, chamber music, and vocal repertoire. Originally from Nagoya, Japan, Ms. Matsumoto started playing the piano at the age of four. She earned both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Piano Performance from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, and later moved to the United States to continue piano studies with Vitaly Margulis. Ms. Matsumoto earned her Doctoral degree with high distinction at UCLA. Upon completion of her DMA, she served as an instrumental accompanist, taught applied piano, and coached chamber music at UCLA and in the Greater Los Angeles area, where she played solo, concerto, and chamber music recitals in venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society.
In 2013, wanting to expand her musical horizons, Kanae Matsumoto moved to New York City to study Vocal Accompanying with Ken Merrill in the Professional Studies Program at Manhattan School of Music. She has since played in vocal master classes given by Martin Katz, Craig Rutenberg, Cristina Stanescu, Margo Garett, and Roger Vignoles; Matsumoto performs song recitals and collaborates with new opera companies in New York City, including Gramercy Opera and City Lyric Opera.
Currently, Kanae Matsumoto is a vocal coach at Manhattan School of Music, the Mahanaim School (Long Island), the Voice Program at the Chautauqua Institution, directed by Marlena Malas, and for Classical Singing and New York in June. Recordings include “French Violin Sonatas” with Jacques Israelievitch (Fleur de son/Naxos) and “Songs of California: Music for Winds and Piano” (music by Jenni Brandon, available on Spotify).
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Jane Olian, Co-Director and Voice Teacher
Soprano Jane Olian, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and a passionate native New Yorker, has been heard in opera, recital and with orchestra throughout the United States, Canada, Italy and Mexico. She has taught on the faculties of Queens College, Mannes College of Music, New England Conservatory, Vassar College, Westminster Conservatory, Artescénica (Saltillo, MX) and New York University. Jane Olian currently teaches for the Juilliard School Evening Division and the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. She also teaches at the Académie La Roche d'Hys in Vitteaux (Bourgogne), France. Masterclasses include Minnesota Opera (Project Opera) and the Metropolitan Opera Guild (High School Vocalist Workshop Series). For more than 35 years, she has maintained a private studio of both promising young singers and working professionals. Jane Olian's students perform with the Metropolitan and New York City Opera companies, as well as with international houses, and include Cantors at major New York City synagogues; her students perform on Broadway and on television, and include Tony, Emmy and Grammy award winners. She is co-founder and co-director (with pianist Donna Gill) of Classical Singing and New York in June, a program for young singers and pianists in New York City, which just completed its eleventh season. In an early career as a guitarist and folksinger, Jane Olian recorded “The Winning of the West” with folksinger Tom Glazer (recently re-mastered and released on YouTube). |
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