Barbara Grecki, is a writer, director, performer and teacher. She has co-written the libretti with Daron Hagen, for New York Stories, and A Woman In Morocco. Her collaboration on In Our Own Words, a theater performance piece of documented interviews ofthe 9/11 experience and Same Difference, follow-up interviews of the aftermath and interfaith outreach, has been presented at the United Nations, and theaters around the country. She was a finalist in the Empire Screen Writing Competition for Being Loved By You. She is a member of The Writers Guild. She is currently collaborating with Hagen on an opera based on The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth.
Barbara will appear next as an actress for the New Mercury Collective in “9/10,” which films and debuts as a staged work in April 2022.
Robert Frankenberry leads a multi‐faceted career as a vocalist, pianist, educator, actor, and conductor. His credits in musical direction cover the span of opera, including Sweeney Todd (Weathervane Theatre), The Tales of Hoffmann (D’Angelo Opera Theatre), Cosi fan Tutte (DaCorneto Opera), Monteverdi’s 8th Book of Madrigals (Opera Theater of Pittsburgh), Robert X. Rodriguez’ Frida (microscopic opera), and the staged premiere of Daron Hagen’s Vera of Las Vegas (Center for Contemporary Opera). During the 2013-2014 season, he served as Associate Music director for Glass/Ginsberg’s Hydrogen Jukebox and Music Director for the premiere of Daron Hagen’s I Hear America Singing at Skylight Musical Theatre, and returned in the Spring of 2015 as Music Director/Alberich/Hunding/Mime/Hagen for the premiere of The Skylight Ring. This past summer, he conducted the premiere of Gilda Lyons’ and Tammy Ryan’s opera, A New Kind of Fallout, based on the life and work of Rachel Carson, for Opera Theater of Pittsburgh’s SummerFest.
On stage, he has performed a wide range of roles, including Mozart (Amadeus), John Adams (1776), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), Yorick (Her Hamlet), Alfredo (La Traviata), The Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto), Count Carl-Magnus (A Little Night Music), Radames (Aida), Rodolfo (La Boheme), and the title roles in Don Carlo, The Tales of Hoffmann, Faust, and Willy Wonka. As a member of Millennial Arts Productions’ Baroque Opera Institute, he received specialized training in Baroque gesture and vocal performance style, and appeared in a fully-staged off-broadway production of Handel’s Messiah.
As Music Director for Opera Theater of Pittsburgh/OT SummerFest, he has garnered critical praise for his collaborations with Jonathan Eaton for their “reimaginations” of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice and Carmen—The Gypsy (re-orchestrated for folk ensmble); a chamber reorchestration for the North American staged premiere of Montemezzi’s L’Incantesimo; and The Tales of Hoffmann—Retold, which featured music from ETA Hoffmann’s Undine recomposed by Frankenberry and incorporated into the production. Their production of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice, which was performed on the lake in the Allegheny Cemetery, was chosen as one of the Pittsburgh region’s Top 10 cultural events for 2011 by the Tribune-Review staff. In 2013, they commissioned the “Fallingwater” version of Daron Hagen’s Shining Brow, which they premiered on and in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and subsequently produced at the Twentieth Century Club in Pittsburgh. Since the inaugural season of the Opera Theater SummerFest Young Artist Program, Frankenberry has coordinated the commissioning of and led the premieres of the Night Caps, Night Caps International, and Happy Hour projects, designed to feature young artists and provide new avenues for audience and community engagement, comprising new works by Daron Hagen (George Washington Suite), Gilda Lyons (Moonlight Suite), Roger Zahab (Happy Hour, Presidential Suite, Penthouse Suite), Eric Moe (Valkyrie Suite), Alberto Demestres (Honeymoon Suite), Monic Cecconi-Bottella (French Suite), Yanwa Guo (Chinese Suite), Dwayne Fulton (Gospel Suite, Bridal Suite), and himself (Checking In/Checking Out). He is currently at work on an official chamber orchestra reduction of Richard Strauss’ Die Schweigsame Frau for the 2016 SummerFest season.
At the piano, Frankenberry performs both traditional classical and contemporary chamber music, and is a member of IonSound, Chrysalis, the Music On the Edge Chamber Ensemble, Trio AnimeBOP, the Phoenix Players, and entelechron. He holds a BM in Piano Performance from Mercyhurst College and an MM in Voice Performance from Carnegie Mellon University. He has held faculty and staff positions at Mercyhurst College, The University of Akron, Chatham University, and Carnegie Mellon University, and is a regular guest presenter at the Vermont College of Fine Arts for their MFA in Composition. (Photo: Elliot Mandel)
First generation California-born Mexican-American composer, vocalist, guitarist, and pianist Carlos Jaquez Gonzalez left his job as a chef to begin his musical training as a composer and vocalist at San Francisco State University, where he received his Bachelor's degree. As a composition student of Richard Festinger and voice student of Nikolas Nackley, he founded the RGB Arts Festival, programming, securing funding, and coordinating multiple university departments in programs featuring music, dance, film, art song, and poetry. He also helped establish a new curriculum for SFSU's music department during his time there. Now based in Chicago, where in Spring 2021, he received/earned his Master’s degree at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, studying composition with Daron Hagen and voice privately with Alexandra LoBianco.
He has composed multiple works for chorus, soloists, percussion, chamber ensembles, electro-acoustic soundscape and orchestra. Most recently gaining recognition by the Chicago Tribune for premiering his “Immigrant Mass,” in collaboration with the Chicago Composers Orchestra, Roosevelt University – Chicago College of Performing Arts, and documentary photographer Greg Constantine. He is also most known as the primary writer, singer and guitarist of the band "The Silhouette Era."
GILDA LYONS, (b. 1975), composer, vocalist, and visual artist, combines elements of renaissance, neo-baroque, spectral, folk, agitprop Music Theater, and extended vocalism to create works of uncompromising emotional honesty and melodic beauty.
The premiere of A New Kind of Fallout—Lyons’ mainstage opera inspired by the life and work of environmentalist Rachel Carson, written with librettist Tammy Ryan, and commissioned by Opera Theater of Pittsburgh—was described as “powerfully effective” (Pittsburgh Stage Magazine), “haunting” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and “spot-on at re-creating the atmosphere of the early '60s” (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review).
As composer and vocalist Lyons’ works and performances are available on the Clarion, GPR, Naxos, New Dynamic, New Focus, and Roven Records labels. Her vocal collaboration with Laura Ward, released on Naxos, was described by Opera News as “winning delivery, full of character.” “Gilda Lyons's clear soprano compels admiration” writes David Shengold of Opera, UK of her performance in Hagen’s “Shining Brow” (Buffalo Philharmonic/Falletta/Naxos). Recent recording projects as composer include the release of Lyons’ works by Quince (Motherland); and entelechron (The Folk Tune Project); Lindsey Goodman's tour de force performance of Lyons' Chrysalis (reach through the sky); and Sing for Hope’s release of Lyons' Hold On (An AIDS Quilt Songbook).
In spring 2020, Lyons’ to know about space, commissioned by Trio Triumphatrix, will be premiered on a series of performances at National Sawdust and The Flea Theater, NYC, produced by Voices of Ascension for their Voices of the New series. Also this season, Lyons’ works will be performed by Quince on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, curated by Missy Mazzoli; by Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek on the Locrian Chamber Players series; by Mirror Visions Ensemble on the Bargemusic Masterworks series; and by Chautauqua Opera; Chautauqua Symphony, Stuart Chafetz, conductor; University of Michigan Symphony Band, Michael Haithcock, conductor; University of Texas at Austin’s Symphony Band, Ryan Kelly, conductor; Manchester Symphony Orchestra, Luca Antonucci, conductor; and Yale Concert Band, Tom Duffy, conductor, among others.
An active vocalist and fierce advocate of contemporary music, Lyons has commissioned, premiered, and workshopped new vocal works by dozens of composers. This season Lyons joins the roster of Lyric Fest and Brooklyn Art Song Society and appears as soloist with Downtown Music at Grace, Kamraton, Wintergreen Music, and Yale Concert Band, Thomas Duffy, conductor.
Lyons currently serves as Co-Chair of the Composition Program at Wintergreen Summer Music Academy, VA; and as Assistant Professor of Composition at The Hartt School, CT. She is Artistic and Executive Director of The Phoenix Concerts, New York's "intrepid Upper West Side new-music series" (The New Yorker), and serves on the Board of Advisors of Composers Now, the Steven R. Gerber Trust, and Sparks & Wiry Cries. Lyons served as Composer-in-Residence of Chautauqua Opera in the 2019 season. In 2020, she returns as composition faculty for Connecticut Summerfest.
Premieres in Ann Arbor, Beijing, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo and beyond include: When I’m Away from You (commissioned by American Opera Projects for Chautauqua Opera, Lauren Yokabaskas, soprano soloist, & Chautauqua Symphony, Stuart Chafetz, conductor); America, Singing (Lyric Fest, Academy of Vocal Arts, Philadelphia); la flor mas linda (Foot in the Door Ensemble, Edward Cumming, conductor; 2019 CBDNA National Convention); hush (Carrie Koffman, saxophone; World Saxophone Congress, Zagreb, Croatia); Summoning Fire (Panic Duo, Los Angeles); Alice Awakens (Wintergreen Festival Orchestra, Erin Freeman, conductor / Foot in the Door Ensemble, Edward Cumming, conductor / University of Pittsburgh Orchestra, Roger Zahab, conductor); Alignment Failed (Blythe Gaissert & Louis Levitt, New York City / Gilda Lyons & Robert Black, Hartford, CT); Scales and Tales (Mirror Visions Ensemble: Musée des arts Decoratifs, Paris / Performing Arts Library of Lincoln Center, New York City / Kerrytown Concert House, Ann Arbor, MI); walk, run, fly for pre-recorded sound & voice (Lyons, Flea Theater, New York City); Lady Beetle for koto (Yumi Kurosawa, Tokyo); La Novia de Tola (Beijing New Music Ensemble, Beijing / Finisterra Trio, Seattle / entelechron, New York City); Invocations for shakuhachi & voice (Kyo-Shin-An Arts, New York City); and rapid transit (5 Borough Music Festival, New York City, available on iTunes and GPR Records).
Commissions include works for The ASCAP Foundation / Charles Kingsford Fund, American Opera Projects, Amy Pivar Dances, Beijing New Music Ensemble, Carrie Koffman, Chautauqua Opera, ComposersCollaborative Inc., Lara Downes, Lyric Fest, entelechron, Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Yumi Korosawa, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, Mirror Visions Ensemble, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Panic Duo, Paul Sperry, Quince, Seraphim, Sweet Plantain String Quartet, Trio Triumphatrix, The Walt Whitman Project, Wintergreen Summer Music Academy, and 5 Borough Music Festival, among many others.
Lyons’ music is published by Schott, E.C. Schirmer, and Burning Sled. She received her Ph.D. in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Bard College. Lyons made her professional debut as composer and vocalist with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra in 1997, performing the world premiere of her orchestral song cycle Feis.
Roger Zahab instigates complex relations through his activities as composer, violinist, conductor, teacher and writer.
His work has been performed throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia by such soloists and ensembles as cellists David Russell and Lawrence Stomberg, violists David Cerutti and Hannah Levinson, violinists Wyatt True and Nathalie Shaw, flutists Elizabeth Brown, Lindsey Goodman, George Pope and Rachel Rudich, guitarists James Ferla, James Marron and John Muratore, pianists Robert Frankenberry, Bennett Lerner, and Eric Moe, percussionists Lisa Pegher, Joshua Quillen, William Sallak, David Skidmore and Dale Speicher, new music groups California EAR Unit, Flute Force, The Furious Band, IonSound Project and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and orchestras such as The New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, Robert Black, conductor, and the Akron Symphony Orchestra, Christopher Wilkins, conductor.
A selection of chamber music has been released: entelechron: time + memory, performed by entelechron: with the composer as violinist, cellist David Russell and pianists Robert Frankenberry and Eric Moe. Other recordings include ...some measures for living by George Pope, flute and Eric Charnofsky, piano (Crystal Records), I still dream and Jump for steel drums performed by Josh Quillen (Steel Drums, available from Bandcamp), deceived by starlight performed by vibraphonist Dale Speicher (Seattle Percussion Collective), levitation of pianos during a waltz played by pianist Eric Moe (Albany Records), Earth's Jig and Silence Orchids played by pianist Bennett Lerner (Albany Records) and Verging Lightfall played by the composer on violin and Eric Moe, piano (Koch International Classics). These recordings and others are available from cdbaby, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and YouTube. Recent works include vioentelechron - for violin and orchestra in flexible instrumentation, at the piano - in honor of favorite pianists, Akron Chronogram for large orchestra with video by Laura Ruth Bidwell commissioned by the Akron Symphony Orchestra, Christopher Wilkins, music director, to celebrate its 60th anniversary, A Christmas Carol - a chamber music version of Charles Dickens' classic, the evening harmonies for violin and viola, Prism Projects, St. Peter's Church in Chelsea, NYC, Evening on 57th Street for solo violin and orchestra with Music on the Edge Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh. Recent commissions include the opera Happy Hour! - commissioned by the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh for performances in taverns throughout the Pittsburgh area as well as in their Summerfest in June and July, 2014, In the Moment for violin and piano, commissioned by the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, I doubt this is over (IonSound Project) and green emotion censer (Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble).
As a violinist, Zahab has given more than a hundred first performances and championed music by a wide range of composers from John Cage to Eric Moe, Kwabena Nketia and Tison Street to Judith Weir and Christian Wolff. Recordings as violinist and composer are available on the Truemedia, Albany and Koch International Classics labels.
Publications include a work for solo snare drum, tapping points, which is published in The Noble Snare collection of compositions for unaccompanied snare drum, volume 4, Smith Publications. His version of John Cage's "Thirteen Harmonies" for violin and keyboard instrument is published by C.F.Peters Corporation.
His conducting repertoire encompasses the history of ensemble music from Andrea Gabrielli up to the present, and includes recent premieres of the operas A Woman in Morocco by Daron Hagen and Barbara Grecki for Kentucky Opera and Mercy Train by Douglas Levine and Julie Tosh.
Current faculty positions include:
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Senior Lecturer and Director of the University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Music on the Edge Chamber Orchestra
Vermont College of Fine Arts: Founding core faculty member of the MFA in Music Composition.
Japanese-American composer Tyler Ono specializes in various musical fields to create more extraordinary experiences. Born and raised in Hawai'i, Tyler grew up in a melting pot of mixed cultures that influenced his interest in fusing music with other art forms. His diverse musical palette has earned him credibility in concert music, film scoring, game scoring, producing, and mix engineering. Tyler recently composed music for an animation by Jewel Racasa that won an award for best animation at the Paris International Film Awards. A graduate of the University of Hawai’i and the Chicago College of Performing Arts, where he studied with Daron Hagen, Tyler served as sound designer for the NMC operafilm “9/10: Love Before the Fall,” is fulfilling commissions, and arranging music for the University of Hawai’i Marching Band.
Mr. Rhoads attained his undergraduate degree in music composition and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following his studies in Madison, he pursued a degree in audio engineering and production from the Institute of Audio Research in New York City. His early career included roles directing the concert music division for Carl Fischer Music Publishers as well as presiding over of his own performing arts management and promotion agency through which he represented the interests of a wide variety of artists, publishers, and performers. In 2006, Mr. Rhoads’ professional career shifted to the management of arts institutions. As Vice President of Marketing & Communications for Orchestra of St. Luke’s/The DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City, Rhoads successfully launched an innovative, business model that ensured the institution’s sustainability and success. Rhoads assumed the Executive Director role in 2016 at The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, where he oversaw all facets of operations, including fundraising, programming, production, marketing, human resources, finance, administration, and board member recruitment. (p/c: Emma Lee/WHYY)
Tevi Eber is a Manhattan-based composer, performer, multi-instrumentalist, conductor, and arranger whose compositions combine the communicability of popular song, the American music theatre, and 21st-century concert music.
2019 saw the premiere of his theatre work, “These Days”, at the West End Theater in Manhattan, following a successful workshop of the same piece at the National Opera Center. Other recent events include premieres of commissioned works for concert pianist Marc Peloquin, guitarist Benjamin Ellis, and the Minaret Trio, among others, as well as the beginning of a cross collaborative post-genre concert series called “Mixtape Saturdays”. 2019 also saw performances at venues across New York City and beyond including Marc A Scorca Hall at the National Opera Center, the Tenri Cultural Institute, the Duplex, The West End Lounge, the Laurie Beechman Theatre, and Rockwood Music Hall.
Tevi has twice been nominated for the 2016 and 2017 award in music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a highly prestigious organization whose members include musical luminaries such as John Corigliano and Stephen Sondheim. Additionally, Tevi was recently named the winner of the Gregg Smith National Choral Composition Competition for his choral setting of Robert Frost’s “Fragmentary Blue”. He has received fellowships from The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Wintergreen Music Festival and Academy, The Atlantic Music Festival, and the Seal Bay Festival of Chamber Music.
Upcoming projects for 2020 include new works for ballet, orchestra, and the recording of an ambitious new work for string quartet and solo performer.
A native of Miami, FL, Tevi received his Master’s degree in composition from Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music where he was awarded the Brian Israel Award for excellence in music composition and scholarship.
Tenor Omar Mulero is active in both opera and musical theater. Operatic credits in the US include Carl and Samuel (The Finishing School), and Orson Welles (Orson Rehearsed), as well as scenes as Tamino, Nadir, and Roméo; musical theater credits include Jack (Into the Woods), Mr. Bazzard (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), and Zebulun (Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat).
Mulero completed his Masters in Vocal Performance at Roosevelt University where he studied with Mark Crayton; he now studies with Rebecca Schorsch and coaches with Dana Brown in Chicago.
Veteran soprano Carol Greif Schuele is equally at home in opera, musical theater, and straight drama, and has starred in dozens of major operatic and musical theater roles over the past thirty years regionally and at her home company, the Skylight Theater in Milwaukee. She teaches at Cardinal Stritch College.
