Gianluca Macheda, founder and President of GM Art and Music, started at a very young age writing reviews about lyric and symphonic events for the newspaper La Gazzetta del Sud. He then moved on to work as an external consultant for Teatro Cilea in Reggio Calabria, followed by a short period at Columbia Artists in New York before he worked in New York and Paris for IMG Artists. In 2017, he opened his own agency, GM Art and Music, which boasts a roster of internationally acclaimed artists who perform all year round in the most important opera houses, concert halls and festivals. With offices across the globe, GM Art & Music offers exceptional service and an international reach to clients and artists with an outstanding young team of artist managers and logistical staff specializing in travel, marketing, and information technology.

Julia Lagahuzère, works as General Director for Opera for Peace. She is also artistic consultant to the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo, Norway. Julia has a passion for finding and helping to nurture young talent, and established a concert series in order to strengthen relations between the QSMIC and the top international young artist programs; notably in collaboration with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. She has previously worked at the San Francisco Opera, Scottish Opera and Opéra de Limoges, and most recently as the highest international level as Deputy Casting Director for Opéra National de Paris in the two theatres of Opéra de Bastille and Palais Garnier. She is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, a musicology scholarship recipient at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a Master’s degree in Opera and Visual Performing Arts from King’s College London in collaboration with the BBC Proms.

Rona Eastwood, Senior Associate Director of Conductors at Askonas Holt, received a degree in Music and English from Exeter University after which she joined the first of many choirs and ensembles, with holidays devoted to touring round Europe and Scandinavia, plus forays to Japan and USA. Rona’s first job was the BBC Radio 3 production secretary, thence to the English Bach Festival, where everything from Bach to Rameau to Xenakis to Zarzuela was scheduled on a shoe-string by its indomitable Artistic Director in London, Oxford, Versailles and Athens. She then moved to Harold Holt, first to the travel department, then six seasons as assistant to Sir Ian Hunter preparing fourteen festivals, sundry concert series and special events. The move across to artist management followed, initially assisting Martin Campbell-White with conductors and occasional touring projects. She has remained with the company ever since, ultimately building an independent list of artists.

Suzanne Calvin, has directed media and public relations at The Dallas Opera for the past 17 years. This followed a similar stint at the Van Cliburn Foundation, where she garnered personal praise in Moscow’s Pravda (June 2001) for her extraordinary information management. Her move to the performing arts came in the wake of a long and distinguished career in news. One of the first women to be named news director in a top-ten media market at the age of 22, Ms. Calvin is the winner of numerous state and regional journalism awards. She is also an occasional librettist (Undelivered, a 2014 cantata with composer Gregory Sullivan Isaacs), classical music programmer and broadcaster, non-fiction writer, producer, and winner of the 1991 Texas Playwrights Festival. Suzanne Calvin was cited by the internationally renowned performing arts website, Slipped Disc, for running one of the ten “Best Press Offices in the Music World” (2017). She also serves as the official “Voice of The Dallas Opera.”

Elizabeth Buccheri, chamber musician and vocal coach, was assistant conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1987 to 2013. Previously, she served as collaborative pianist for Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute for Young Artists and pianist for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She has toured as pianist of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed with the Vermeer and Shanghai string quartets, and with Midori, Gil Shaham, Michelle DeYoung, Vinson Cole, Samuel Ramey, Thomas Hampson, Sherrill Milnes, and Susanna Phillips. Her recordings can be found on the CRI, Spectrum, Sony, Cedille, Boston, and Albany labels. She is the first American to receive the Sir Georg Solti Foundation Award. A dedicated teacher, Ms. Buccheri has given master classes at The Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, AMFS, Lawrence Conservatory, and the music academies of Lithuania and Latvia.