Beth Stewart is the founder of Verismo Communications, a classical music PR firm that prizes authenticity over plasticity, creates space and opportunity in clients’ lives, and operates with unswerving integrity. With Verismo, she has propelled clients to features in top international publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, Opera, Opera News, Billboard, and Gramophone. She has played an integral role in major promotional campaigns, with clients such as mezzo Jamie Barton, soprano Corinne Winters, conductors Eun Sun Kim and Lidiya Yankovskaya, and Against the Grain Records earning recognition from the Solti Foundation US, International Opera Awards, Latin Grammy Awards, Juno Awards, and BBC Music Magazine Awards. Beth’s trademark drive and infectious energy have been instrumental in the launch of Turn The Spotlight, created to illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts.
Jennifer Spencer
Jennifer Spencer trained at the Royal College of Music, London, as a violinist and subsequently joined the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as a first violinist. She then moved into Artist Management – initially at Van Walsum then latterly as a Director of Harrison Parrott where, over the course of 20 years, she managed such names as Paavo Jarvi, Sakari Oramo, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Ivan Fischer, Andrey Boreyko, Krzysztof Urbanski and Xian Zhang. Jennifer left Harrison Parrott in June 2016 to work on her own projects. Currently, she is working alongside Ivan Fischer on the artistic and touring planning for the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and (in October 2017) she created a small conductor roster which she operates in conjunction with IMG Artists Ltd from London.
Stephanie Rhodes Russell
Stephanie Rhodes Russell, a renowned opera collaborator, is a Conducting Fellow with the Fort Worth Symphony and Associate Conductor for the Grand Teton Music Festival. She is a 2019 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award recipient and this season makes her European debut with Staatsoper Stuttgart. A former participant in The Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Ms. Rhodes Russell is also a Fulbright award recipient and specializes in Russian repertoire and pronunciation at the Bolshoi Theatre. She has served on music staff at The Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Washington National Opera, amongst others. She is also the founder of Women’s Artistic Leadership Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to educating young women in leadership skills and business acumen.
Paolo Petrocelli
Paolo Petrocelli serves as the Cultural and Music Diplomacy Officer for the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. He has become a leading member of some of the most prestigious international organizations, including the United Nations, UNESCO, and the World Economic Forum. He is also the Co-Founder and President of the Youth Committee of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO. As a Music Diplomacy Ambassador, he serves in institutional roles to forge bonds through music in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the US. Mr. Petrocelli is the founder and President of EMMA for Peace (Euro-Mediterranean Music Academy for Peace). He is also a Board member and International advisor at Opera di Roma, Opera Lebanon, and Royal Opera House Muscat.
Lee Anne Myslewski
Lee Anne Myslewski, joined Wolf Trap Opera in 2006, and has cultivated new partnerships and programs to uphold the company’s widespread acclaim as the country’s most venerated summer training program for emerging artists. She conceived of the Untrapped series of programming which has featured artistic partnerships with the Shakespeare Theatre, Taffety Punk, Children’s National Medical Center as well as ongoing partnerships with The Phillips Collection and the National Orchestral Institute, created the Artistic Advisor position for Chamber Music at the Barns, and has participated in the casting and programming of operatic productions for over a decade. As VP of Opera and Classical Programming, Lee Anne oversees all aspects of Wolf Trap Opera, an artist-centric program whose alumni are singing in every opera house in the nation and in the most prestigious houses in the world.
Gianluca Macheda
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.