Litha Ashforth (coloratora soprano) Is known for her “spellbinding” presence on stage. She has garnered numerous prestigious awards, including honors from the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation at the Music Academy of the West and the Maestro Award from World Strides Heritage Festival. A native of Santa Barbara, California, Litha has been performing since her preschool graduation. At 14, she relocated to Boston to further her education and artistic development. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and will commence her Artist Diploma at the Cali School of Music this Fall. Litha's versatile career spans appearances on prominent marquees across the United States. In addition to her operatic work, she has starred in a one-woman off-Broadway play, and made notable contributions to television, film, and music videos. Her work also includes performances in devised theatre in Los Angeles and experimental performance art in both NYC and LA. 

For more information, visit lithaashforth.com

Michael Celentano (tenor) is a former young artist at Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance,  Tri-Cities Opera, and Finger Lakes Opera. As the winner of the 2023 National Federation of Music Clubs Competition, Mr. Celentano will be touring the country as a recitalist and masterclass facilitator. Recent appearances include Finger Lakes Opera’s Aida as Radames (cover) and Stony Brook Opera Theater’s La Tragedie de Carmen as Don Jose. Other featured performances include Max in Bronx Opera’s production of Der Freischütz, Miner in La Fanciulla del West and Ensemble in L’Amore de tre Re, both with New York City Opera as well as  a Nibechung Vassal in The Metropolitan Opera's 2019 production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. Upcoming performances include covering as tenor soloist for Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge at Carnegie Hall and Don Jose in Brooklyn-based Opera Next Door’s production of Carmencita, a Bizet’s Carmen adaptation. Mr. Celentano is a recent recipient of the Doctorate of Musical Arts at Stony Brook University and is a student of Jeremy Little and Brenda Harris.

 Alize Francheska Rozsnyai (soprano) and graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music “displaying profound imagination and control” (Philadelphia Inquirer), is building a diverse and exciting performance career as a classical soprano with a "superb voice" (Harrogate News) which is “sparkling” (ArtBlog), all while serving up "deliciously diva performances" (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN). This season she appears with St. Petersburg Opera as an Emerging Artist and in the World Premiere of Five Ways to Die with Experiments in Opera NYC, as well as her role debut as Frasquita in Carmen with Boheme Opera NJ. Recently she performed with Hub City Opera, Garden State Opera, Opera Boheme New Jersey, Opera Fayetteville, Soloist in Beth Morrison Projects' Next Gen Concert with Contemporaneous Ensemble at National Sawdust, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Den Nye Opera in Bergen, Norway, Opera Philadelphia, San Diego Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Seattle Symphony [Untitled 3] Series, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Opera Fayetteville, Center for Contemporary Opera, The Cape Cod Symphony, and more. Alize is also an accomplished librettist and is has had several works performed with companies including Experiments in Opera, Hub City Opera, ENA Ensemble, and the University of Connecticut. 

Dana Kinney (mezzo-soprano)  is a multi-faceted artist working as an actor, opera director and singer in New York City. She is recognized as “a consummate storyteller with a warm and clear tone.” Ms. Kinney has performed throughout her

hometown in Colorado in roles such as Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti, Carmen in Carmen, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, and Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana. Her most recent engagement was singing the role of “They” in Nathan Hall’s new opera, Atlas of the Remote Islands. Other performances include Mercédès (Carmen), Tisbe (La Cenerentola), The Baker’s Wife (Into the Woods), Zita (Gianni Schicchi), Baba (The Medium) and Buttercup (H.M.S Pinafore). This season, Ms. Kinney will be making her Seattle Opera debut as an Assistant Director, working alongside Dan Wallace Miller on Pagliacci. She has studied at The BarrowGroup, UCB, The Pit and Rise Comedy and holds a M.M in Voice Performance from Colorado State University and a B.A from the University of Norther Colorado.

Joelle Lachance (mezzo-soprano) Heralded as a “thrilling, powerful voice with a melting pianissimo” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), “nuanced combination of pitch control and power” (rochestercitynewspaper.com), “a

beautiful, caramel color voice” (Nicole Cabell, soprano), and “a hoot!” (thebargainhunter.com), Joelle has performed a variety of roles at Eastman Opera Theater, Glimmerglass Festival,  Buffalo Opera Unlimited,  Barn Opera, Ohio Light Opera, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and much more. She made her European debut as Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte (Berlin Opera Academy, 2016). Known for her “simply thrilling - disciplined, precise” performances (The Freeman’s Journal), Joelle was the winner in the Fingerlakes NATS 2022 competition, a finalist in the 2018 Barn Opera Vocal Competition, and a winner of the 2012 Rising Stars Competition at Nazareth College. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in New York Lyric Opera’s Night of Music (November 2019).  Joelle is pursuing a DMA in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy and an MM in Stage Directing at  the Eastman School of Music .

Matt Mueller (bass) is a versatile and sensitive singing actor whose distinctive performances have been seen on stages including the New York Philharmonic, Florentine Opera and Cleveland Opera Theater, among many others. Highlights include Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Pluton (Hippolyte et Aricie), Betto (Gianni Schicchi) and more. Matt recently completed a stint as Artist-in-Residence with the Ohio Light Opera (Lancelot in Camelot, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore). He completed his master’s degree in music at the Cleveland Institute of Music and previously trained at the University of Oklahoma (BMA, piano), Berlin Opera Academy and Middlebury Language Institute where he studied both German and Italian.

Daniel Rosenberg (spieltenor ) is a character tenor based in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed roles including Monostatos, Die Zaubeflöte; Mercurio, La Callisto; George III, 8 Songs for a Mad King; Prince Gabriel iii’s Trainer’s Son, Vinkensport; Peter Ginz; and more. Rosenberg made his professional debut with Onsite opera in Il Tabarro. He made his broadway debut in 2016. Daniel also performed the role of Narrator in his original musical: Richard! Rosenberg has written and produced multiple musicals with his company Join or Die Productions, and was awarded the NEC Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant for his work on his musical Ghost Riders in the Sky. Daniel Rosenberg sings professionally with the Christ Church Choir at Christ Church NYC on 59th street and has sung with the Oberlin College Choir, the New England Conservatory Chamber singers,  St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland. Daniel also filled the role of cantor at christ the king Episcopal in Tucson, Arizona. Rosenberg is an Alumni of the Tucson Arizona Boys chorus. He attended Oberlin Conservatory from 2016-2017, and New England Conservatory through 2021 where he earned his Bachelor of Music and received  his Master of Music in Vocal Performance at Mannes School of Music in 2023.

Julie Schoonover (soprano) is based in New York City and Paris. She performs opera, oratorio, art songs and jazz. She has appeared with L’Ensemble Chorus 14, New York Opera Forum, Mercury Opera, the Nathan Felix Opera Collective, Morningside Opera Company and L’Oeuvre d’Art Vivant. She made her operatic début singing Marzelline in Fidelio. Since then she has performed Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Ilia (Idomeneo), and the High Priestess (Aida). She is the Soprano 2 Section Leader at St. Michael’s Church in New York. She studies with Sharla Nafziger, Carol Baggott-Forte, and coach Gary Norden. 

Ilvi Dulack (dramaturge) Ilvi Dulack grew up in a family of writers and a community of artists. She studied piano at The Hartt School and theater at the University of Connecticut and has worked as an actress on and off Broadway and in regional theaters. She is also a producer of plays and screenplays, a writer, a theater director, an actress and a musician. She served as co-producer on Underground, a short film about homeless children living in the subways, and also co-produced 3 Minutes, a short film about gun violence in America. She was a producer on the award winning feature film Tiger Lily Road, a dark comedy released in 2015 and was co-producer of the off broadway production of 1348, a play by Tom Dulack at the Chelsea Playhouse. She also served as co-producer of the off-off Broadway production of On The Eve adapted for the stage by Fred Pezzulli, from the novel of the same name by Ivan Turgenev, directed by Aleksey Burago. Ilvi assistant directed the world premier of the opera My Last Duchess, by composer Theodore Wipred, and the opera The Clever Mistress, by composer Robert Sirota, both presented at Symphony Space in 2012 with Victoria Bond conducting. She has served as an editor and script consultant on numerous projects for stage and film. She has taught screenwriting at the University of Connecticut and she taught acting  at the Hotchkiss School. She currently mentors a workshop for creative fiction and non fiction and dramatic writing. For further info you may contact Ilvi at idulack@gmail.com

Don Dinicola (composer and librettist) His music career began in the 1980’s. He worked extensivley in regional theater, notably The American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, MA) and Anne Bogart’s SITI Company based in NYC and Toga Japan. In 1992 his critically acclaimed opera, “Ubu

Roi” earned him further commissions. From there, film and television composition flowed naturally. Once in the multi-media genre, Don spread out to directing, producing, sound design and music supervision. His film and television credits include Emmy Award winning show "Suicide Bombers/Cult Of Death; (Discovery Channel), "The Art Of Failure; Chuck Connelly Not For Sale” (HBO) "Baring It All" (Style Network). Don also worked on “Miami Ink”, “How it’s Made” and John Scagliotti’s documentaries, “Before Homosexuals” and “After

Stonewall”. Don has written and produced music for NatGeo, The History Channel, PBS, A&E, TLC, Discovery Channel, CNBC, Style Network, Sundance TV, and HBO networks. In 2015 Don directed and produced an original score by Renee Baker (VCFA alumna), recorded by the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project for the 1925 Oscar Micheaux film “Body and Soul”. The film received a grant from New Music USA to screen with a live orchestra soundtrack and was performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Ebertfest and the Chatham 14-multiplex on the South side of Chicago. In 2011 Don formed Eureka Post Production, supervising video and audio post production for broadcast TV, including more than 1500 episodes of the hit show, “House Hunters International”. Don is writing a new opera, directing a musical animated feature and recently contributed original music to Paul Chihara’s latest feature film project, “Jasmine”, as part of their

ongoing collaboration. He is a founding faculty member of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Music Composition Program.

http://www.dondinicola.com http://www.notheremedia.com

Robert Frankenberry (music director) enjoys a multi-faceted relationship with music as a singer, pianist, conductor, orchestrator, director, and even occasionally as a composer. On stage, he has performed a wide range of roles including Mozart (Amadeus), John Adams (1776), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), the title roles in Don Carlo, The Tales of Hoffmann, Faust, and Willy Wonka, and Orson Welles in Daron Hagen’s filmopera Orson Rehearsed. At the piano, he regularly performs works by living composers with such groups as Pittsburgh’s IonSound and AnimeBOP; New York City’s The Phoenix Players and PRISM Players; and multi-city entelechron and Chrysalis Duo. He has served on the coaching/accompanying staff at Seton Hill, Duquesne, Carnegie Mellon, and Point Park; the voice faculty at Mercyhurst and Point Park; and the Theatre Arts faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he provided vocal direction for Pitt Stages’ productions of Nine, Peter & The Starcatcher, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; musical direction for Hair and Little Shop of Horrors; and direction for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Parade. He served as visiting Music Director for the opera program at the University of North Texas during the ’18/’19 and 19/’20 academic seasons, during which time he conducted productions of The Cunning Little Vixen, Don Giovanni, Regina, Gianni Schicchi, and Le Testament de la Tante Caroline as well as developing the script and creating the musical arrangements for If I Loved You, the first ever officially sanctioned original dramatic revue using songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Robert was significantly involved with Pittsburgh Festival Opera from 2000–2021 in various capacities, including Artistic Administrator, Music Director, and Director of the Hans and Leslie Fleischner Young Artist Program. His contributions in creative development, orchestration, and musical direction during that time included: The Tales of Hoffmann – Retold; Carmen (black box adaptation with his own folk band orchestration); Orpheus & Eurydice (both Gluck and Gordon); Shining Brow (Fallingwater version); reduced orchestration for Die Schweigsame Frau; Night Caps (also contributing as a composer);  Night Caps International; Roger Zahab’s Happy Hour; Gilda Lyons’ A New Kind of Fallout; Dwayne Fulton’s A Gathering of Sons; the world-premiere live-performance adaptations of Mr. Rogers’ Operas; OWOW (Opera Without Walls); a film adaptation of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (including full programming of his own orchestration); and a complete on-location film of Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata. Other recent projects include the role of Verdi in the remote project Verdi by Vegetables for Resonance Works | Pittsburgh; an 18 player orchestration of L’Enfant et les sortilèges for Carnegie Mellon Opera; streaming performance for Music on the Edge of David Del Tredici’s MONSTERS, Part II: Scylla and Charybdis for narrating pianist; and premieres of works by Aaron Wyanski and David Mahler with violinist Roger Zahab. He can be heard on the Naxos, Albany, New World Records, Roven Records, New Dynamic Records, and Innova labels, as well as various streaming platforms.

Devin Barone (engraver and composer's assistant) Devin Barone DVB (b. 1996) is a composer, percussionist, music engraver, and writer from Bay Shore, NY. They create music in a variety of settings, with roots in classical and contemporary music, the various genres of the modern drummer, and soundtracks. DVB is particularly interested in narrative, rhythm, motivic development and is currently fixated on glitches in music, and finding musical ways to “break” music as we expect it to be to find new sounds and gestures, and depict new stories.

Devin’s music combines aspects of EDM, chiptune, jazz, ambient, orchestral music, and musical

theater — and is influenced by the works of Conlon Nancarrow, who wrote music that pushed

past what was playable by humans. At the same time, I’m also interested in finding music we can all play and connect over as humans, and find inspiration from communal music making, and the processes by which people create musical memes to share with others. Here's  the formal stuff: Devin’s solo timpani piece Impetus is recognized in the New York State School Music

Association [NYSSMA] Manual ed. 32-onward, and full orchestra work Expansion! was performed at the 2013 TVMF Young Composers Forum at age 16. A variety of their electronic works including fail_better [fluffball] have been presented at NYC-EMF, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Frontwave EMF, and OUA-EMF in Japan in 2018 and 2020. ​In 2020 Barone earned an MFA in Music Composition at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he is now Assistant Director of the Music Composition MFA program. DVB has studied with Don DiNicola, Carla Kihlstedt, John Mallia, Mike Early, Paul Coleman, Jamie Leigh Sampson, Rob Deemer, and Ed Schaefer. Devin has also had the opportunity to work with performers such as Grammy award winning cellist Andrew Yee of the Attacca Quartet,

composer/vocalist Sarah LeMieux, bedroom pop artist Osukasu, chamber ensemble loadbang, and wind quintet The City of Tomorrow. http://www.dvbarone.com