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Luna Seongeun Park graduated as the top master’s student at the Mannes School of Music and is now continuing her studies at The Juilliard School. She has won numerous awards in international competitions, including Grand Prize at the Career Bridges Grant Awards, First place at the Korea & China International Vocal Competition, Second place at the LISMA International Competition, and recognition in the Opera Index and the Annapolis Opera Competition. Recently, she was a semifinalist in the Belvedere Singing Competition. She has performed in Don Giovanni, L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Dark Sisters and has the roles of Zerlina, Gilda, Nannetta, and Adina in her repertoire. Luna has appeared in major venues including Carnegie Hall and the Seoul Arts Center.
In the 2023/24 season, Chelsea Laggan brings her “memorably timbred dark mezzo” (Opera News) to multiple debuts, most notably in her role debut as Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen with Sarasota Opera. In Spring 2022, she originated the role of Nelly/Heather in the world premiere concert version of Kevin Puts’ The Hours with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has also brought several classic mezzo characters to life in performance with regional companies throughout the United States, including Olga in Eugene Onegin, Maddalena in Rigoletto, and Erda in Das Rheingold. Along with her extensive opera repertoire, Chelsea has experience in sacred and secular concert music, having performed with many American orchestras. She is a graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts and in 2023, was a Career Bridges Grant Winner, Jensen Vocal Competition Finalist, and Elizabeth Connell Prize quarterfinalist.
Mark Kurmanbayev gained his experience in his home of Serbia. He has already worked with conductors Dmitry Korchak, Liubof Orfenova and Kirill Petrenko and studied with Grace Bumbry, Barbara Frittoli, Freddie de Tommaso and Sergei Leiferkus. In December 2021, Mark debuted in Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortileges at the World Opera Workshop. This year he made his debut as Narumov in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame at Baden-Baden, working with Maestro Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker and last season he began working under the guidance of the world-renowned bass Alexey Tanovitski, and will appear in the world premiere of Animal Farm at Dutch National Opera. This summer he was part of the Summer Residency at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, performing under the baton of Thomas Hengelbrock. This season, he will enter the Dutch National Opera Studio.
South Korea-born baritone Minki Hong is a Master’s Diploma student at The Juilliard School, where he studies with Kevin Short. He previously graduated from Seoul National University with a bachelor’s degree in 2022. While pursuing his studies in South Korea, Minki was honoured with a Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-Koo Foundation scholarship. He has also been awarded in both the Song and Aria division of the Gerda Lissner Competition and, earlier this year, won the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition Florida District and Third Prize in the South-East Region. Minki made his debut as Marco and as a cover of Gianni Schicchi in Gianni Schicchi at The Juilliard School. He also sang Masetto in Don Giovanni with Camerata Bardi International Academy. Starting this August, he continues his studies at Juilliard as an Artist Diploma student.
Currently a master’s student at Rice University, Adam Cantangui studies with Nova Thomas. Recent roles at the Shepherd School of Music include Lenksy (Eugene Onegin) and First Sailor (Dido and Aeneas). A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Adam’s stage credits include Arcadio (Florencia en el Amazons), Oronte (Alcina), Jack (Into the Woods) and Miles Zegner (Proving Up). Other roles include Spoletta (Tosca), the first armoured man (The Magic Flute) with the Opera Theatre of St Louis, and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) with the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory.
Isabelle Barthélemy has worked in a variety of art restoration and craft trades, including floral painting on furniture and leatherwork.
In 2016, she founded the Insolite Lights company with François Monnet: creating and making sculptures / lanterns, giant animals made of wicker and paper, for street shows. Following this rich experience, she created a series of interior lamps and other wicker and paper creations. At the same time, she is developing her own way of creating giant lanterns and light masks for theatre, street shows and installations for towns and cities.
Since 2019, she has been training as a prop maker, working in costume design workshops for opera companies.
“Yilian is one of the most incredible talents of the new generation of Cuban musicians. She is a virtuoso, she is expressive, spontaneous and with a grace that makes her the favorite of all of us.” — Chucho Valdés
Yilian Cañizares is one of the most intriguing contemporary violinists, singers and composers. Always staying true to her origins, she skilfully blends jazz, classical and Afro- Cuban rhythms with her otherworldly voice. Whether on stage or in a recording studio, there are few talented artists like Yilian – who was born in Havana and settled in Switzerland – with such great respect for the past and sensitivity towards the future, accompanied by a smile to die for.
Pianist and composer Nicolas Namoradze came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the triennial Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada—among the largest prizes in classical music. His recitals around the globe have been met with universal critical praise, and recent album releases have received extraordinary accolades, including the Choc de Classica, Record of the Month in Limelight, Instrumental Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Editor’s Choice in Presto Classical and Critics’ Choice in International Piano.
His current activities include residencies at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Summer Music; recitals at concert halls including New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan; festival appearances at Tanglewood, Banff, Gstaad, Santa Fe and more; and performances with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Karina Canellakis, Hans Graf, John Axelrod, Ken-David Masur, Finnegan Downie-Dear and Daniele Rustioni.
After completing his undergraduate in Budapest, Vienna and Florence, Namoradze moved to New York for his master’s at The Juilliard School and his doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center. His teachers and mentors have included Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff and Eliso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition. He also holds a postgraduate degree in neuropsychology from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College, London, where his research interests included the effects of mental practice and mindfulness on musical performance. Namoradze is the author of the book “Ligeti’s Macroharmonies”, published by Springer in the Computational Music Science series, and his compositions are published by Muse Press.
After serving on the faculty of Queens College, where he taught chamber music, composition and music history, Nicolas Namoradze now teaches piano and chamber music on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center and The Juilliard School.
Hamburg’s exceptional talent Niklas Paschburg has developed his own musical style in which neo-classical, ambient and serious music merge into a sound that is both meditatively moving and symphonically uplifting. The artist, who now lives in Berlin, plays his favourite instrument, the piano, with a twist, in churches and clubs. Like a DJ, his music mixes synthesiser, piano, accordion and bass drums with a computer to create video and light shows. Niklas Paschburg loves nature and draws inspiration from it, creating sound-painting journeys through deep soundscapes with club-ready intensity.
Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Louis Jucker obtained a degree in architecture in Lausanne, and from then on, as a “full-time DIY musician”, he set up his do-it-yourself tricks. As the powerful lead singer of the mathcore band Coilguns, he toured Europe and overseas. He still writes theatre music and poetic folksongs for himself and his growing circle of artists, and enjoys inventing and building instruments, tinkering with recording techniques and collaborating on cross-disciplinary projects, notably with visual artist Augustin Rebetez and actors Joël Maillard and Camille Mermet. Louis Jucker is co-founder of the Hummus Records label and the Mono Hobo association, a production platform that networks artists across disciplines through workshops, recordings and performances. He is the winner of the Swiss Music Prize 2021.