USA
Leah Johns, originally from North Carolina, is both a mezzo-soprano and a digital marketing manager. Named as “one to watch” by Montreal’s newspaper Le Devoir, Johns recently completed a Master’s Degree in Opera and Voice at McGill University, and has performed roles across the USA and Canada. She is currently a social-media manager with Lenny’s Studio, a female-founded public-relations firm for artists and arts organizations. In this capacity she manages the social-media accounts for such major artists as Ailyn Pérez, Jennifer Rowley, Susanna Mälkki, and Kristine Opolais. Johns believes in making opera accessible and inclusive for contemporary audiences. She is the founder of Opera Shenanigans, an Instagram-based social-media platform designed to celebrate the silly side of opera. Johns has grown an organic community of over 7,000 opera fans from around the world who enjoy reveling in the realities (and often absurdities) of the opera world.
Yvette Loynaz, a fundraiser, administrator, and opera singer, is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts and building community around the arts. She recently was named director of artistic administration at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and is a member of Sphinx LEAD, a professional empowerment program for arts leaders of color. Earlier, Loynaz served as the director of individual giving at New World Symphony (NWS) in Miami and performed professionally in Europe. She is co-founder and former artistic director of Bang-up! Opera, a global pop-up opera troupe that creates opera experiences in unexpected and accessible ways. Loynaz earned her bachelor of music degree in vocal performance from the Manhattan School of Music and post-graduate certificate in opera from Belgium’s Operastudio Vlaanderen. Previously administrative director and a voice faculty member at Manhattan School of Music’s Precollege Division, she is an alumna of young-artist programs at the Caramoor, Glimmerglass, and Aspen festivals.
Yeo Ryeong Ahn most recently appeared as a finalist in the Gustav Mahler competition in Bamberg. She received her Master’s Degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Illinois under the guidance of Donald Schleicher and her bachelor’s in conducting from the Korea National University of Arts. As the recipient (in Arts) of a Fulbright Scholarship sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Ms. Ahn has appeared in diverse music festivals and masterclasses across the globe. These include engagements to conduct the Bamberger Symphoniker, Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony Orchestra, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, Pierre Monteux Summer Music Festival, Järvi Conducting Academy at Pärnu Music Festival, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra. Her mentors include Johannes Schlaefli, Christian Ehwald, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Gregory Vajda, Peter Eötvös, Michael Jinbo, Paavo Järvi, Markand Thakar, Tadaaki Otaka, and Jorma Panula. Yeo Ryeong Ahn actively seeks to work with orchestras all around the world, in order to build connections that will enhance the development of the classical music industry in Korea.
Christine Brandes has earned acclaim at many of the distinguished opera houses and concert venues. She has sung principal soprano roles at San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, New York City Opera, and the major companies of Houston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Montreal, and Portland, among others. Brandes has collaborated with many renowned conductors, such as Boulez, Mackerras, Hogwood, Glover, Salonen, and McGegan. A formidable concert artist who has appeared with most of this country’s prominent orchestras, she recently appeared with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in György Kurtág’s Scenes from a Novel and with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Rizzi, in Debussy’s La demoiselle élue. Brandes has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and major works of Purcell, Blow, Arne, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Telemann, Scarlatti, Porpora, Rameau, Eric Moe, and Augusta Read Thomas. As a conductor, Brandes has led two rarely heard works, Haydn’s Armida and Rameau’s Acante et Céphis, for Victory Hall Opera (Charlottesville) and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for West Edge Opera (Berkeley).
Michelle Di Russo is a recipient of the 2020 American Austrian Foundation/Faber Young Conductors Fellowship and has joined the Chicago Sinfonietta Project Inclusion for their 2020/2021 season. She recently graduated with a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from Arizona State University, where she served as assistant conductor for the ASU Symphony Orchestra and Opera Lyric Theatre. Dedicated to the music of our time, in 2019 Di Russo participated as a Conducting Fellow in the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy, and with the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own.” Di Russo has also worked with the Phoenix Youth Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Musicfest, Silicon Valley Symphony, and Charleston Symphony. She holds a master of music degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Kentucky and a degree in orchestral conducting from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina.