Elizabeth Askren (USA) is both an alumna and Faculty Ambassador for TDO’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors. Among her recent and upcoming performances are debuts in Europe with Romania’s Transylvanian State Philharmonic, the Romanian National Opera of Cluj-Napoca, and France’s Victor Hugo Franche-Comté orchestra, and in the United States with TDO, Kentucky Opera, and Hawaii Opera Theatre. Currently conductor-in-residence at the Romanian National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima,” Askren is the founder and artistic director of Transylvanian Opera Academy, Romania’s first opera studio. Since its creation in 2017, TOA has been featured on national television and radio and in the press and benefitted from a unique observation residency with the National Opera of Paris’s Academy. Askren holds diplomas in piano and conducting from The Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, Bard Conductors Institute and in France, the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale de Musique. Her musical mentors include conductors Marin Alsop and Lorin Maazel, and pianists Byron Janis and Sergio Perticaroli. Askren was awarded the highest teaching diplomas from both the French Ministry of Culture and the Romanian Ministry of Education.