David Lomelí joined The Dallas Opera in 2014 as artistic coordinator and was named director of artistic administration in 2018. He was also recently named casting director for Bavarian State Opera, effective in 2021. As the first manager of Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Mr. Lomelí recruited over 400 conductors from more than 30 countries to apply, as well as 50 US women administrators. Before joining TDO, Mr. Lomelí performed as a tenor with many of the world’s leading companies including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Glyndebourne Festival, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and San Francisco Opera. He earned an undergraduate degree in computer science engineering at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico, and a graduate degree in international marketing from la Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. He is a recipient of the National Youth Prize in the Arts, presented by the Mexican government, and won first prize in the categories of opera and zarzuela in Plácido Domingo’s 2006 Operalia. Mr. Lomelí is an alumnus of some of the most prestigious training programs for opera artists: the Domingo- Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera, the Merola Opera Program and Adler Fellowship at the San Francisco Opera, and the International Society of Mexican Art and Values in Mexico City.
Shawna Lucey
Nick Martin
Nicholas Ivor Martin represents management in labor union negotiations. Recent clients include The Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Prior to 2020, he was Vice President of Artistic Operations at Lyric Opera of Chicago and participated in national media negotiations with the American Federation of Musicians for two decades. He is a longterm board member of the American Guild of Musical Artists Health and Retirement Fund and of the Solti Foundation US. He is also the author of The Opera Manual (published by Scarecrow Press / Rowman & Littlefield) and co-author of Miss Manners Minds Your Business (with his mother, Judith Martin).
Kim Noltemy
Ross Perot President & CEO, Dallas Symphony Association
Kim Noltemy joined the Dallas Symphony Association (DSA) as President & CEO in January 2018. Since Noltemy’s arrival, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra has embarked on a bold, new strategic plan and has implemented numerous new initiatives that will have a long-term impact on the landscape of classical music in Dallas and the entire industry. Her visionary leadership guided the Dallas Symphony to become the first major American orchestra to perform for an in-person audience in their hall with their Music Director after the COVID-19 shutdown. During her tenure, the orchestra appointed renowned Music Director Fabio Luisi, Gemma New as Principal Guest Conductor and Angélica Negrón as Composer-in-Residence. In May 2019, Noltemy successfully negotiated the transition of management of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center from the City of Dallas to the Dallas Symphony Association. She also founded the annual DSO’s Women in Classical Music Symposium and launched a comprehensive EDI plan for the orchestra in September 2020. Noltemy served as Chair of the Dallas Arts District board January 2020-2022. She also serves on the boards of the Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Aging Minds, and she is a member of the Dallas Assembly, Dallas Summit, Charter 100, Dallas international Women’s Forum and Executive Women’s Roundtable. Noltemy was named a D CEO Dallas 500 in 2020, 2021 and 2022, was a 2020 finalist for the Dallas Morning News’ Texan of the Year, and received the Business Council for the Arts Obelisk Award in November 2021.
Elizabeth Askren
Conductor and HIWC Alumna & Faculty – The Dallas Opera
Elizabeth Askren, Franco-American conductor, has guest conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. Equally at home in opera, she assisted productions in major European venues (Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées…) before débuting most recently with the Opéra de Toulon, the Romanian National Opera of Cluj-Napoca, and the Dallas Opera. Askren is the Founder and Artistic Director of TOA – Transylvanian Opera Academy, Romania’s first opera studio. Since its creation in 2017, TOA has been showcased in the national media, with partners such as the French Ministry of Culture and the Paris National Opera’s Academy. She is invited throughout Europe and the United States to teach and speak about conducting and the art of leadership. Askren holds diplomas in piano and conducting from the Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Conducting Institute of Bard in the United States, and the Schola Cantorum and the Ecole Normale de Musique in France.
Paolo Bressan
From Jonas Kaufmann, Diana Damrau and Jospeh Calleja to Christian Thielemann – Italian conductor Paolo Bressan is making a name for himself among the top talents in classical music today.
Paolo Bressan was educated at the Conservatory “Giuseppe Verdi” in Milan, Italy, at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar and also studied piano with Louis Lortie. His mentors are Daniele Gatti, Christian Thielemann and Emmanuel Villaume. An Italian now living in Berlin, Bressan has spent much of his working career in Germany and is fluent in Italian, German, English, French and Spanish.
Bressan launched his career at the Mecklenburgische Staatstheater Schwerin and Theater Kiel, where he conducted a wide range of repertoire. He also served as principal conductor and artistic administrator of the city of Schwerin Youth Symphony Orchestra, where he continually broadened his symphonic repertoire. Paolo Bressan was the founder of the first “Jugendsinfonie Orchester Festival Schwerin,” where Symphony Youth Orchestras from Berlin and Hamburg were given the chance to make music together under the patronage of Manuela Schwesig, the federal ministry for family affairs and youth.
He was invited to conduct Der Freischütz in Flensburg, Die Zauberflöte in Karlsruhe, as well as Così fan tutte in Vendome, France.
Paolo Bressan was Christian Thielemann’s assistant at the 2015 Salzburg Easter Festival for Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci starring Jonas Kaufmann, he assisted Kazushi Ono at the Opera de Lyon for The Flying Dutchman and Emmanuel Villaume at the Gran Teatro la Fenice in Venice for Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine.
In January 2015, he made a highly praised, critically acclaimed debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus in concert with Joseph Calleja and the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra.
In June 2015, Bressan prepared orchestras and chorus for a four-city tour of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta starring Anna Netrebko and conducted by Emmanuel Villaume (Lucerne, Copenhagen, Monte Carlo, and London).
In September 2015, Paolo Bressan served as artistic advisor for a CD recording of Diana Damrau performing in studio with the Orchestra de l’Opera de Lyon, “Works of G. Meyerbeer.”
In December 2015, Paolo Bressan assisted Daniele Gatti and prepared the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in a Verdi program for a special New Year’s Concert.
From October until December 2015, Bressan conducted Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienne as well as lyric concerts at the Dallas Opera, where he will return in March 2016. In February 2016, he will make his debut in Prague and will appear for the the first time at the Théatre-des-Champs-Elysée in Paris with the PFK Philharmonia Prague and tenor Bryan Hymel.