Christopher Theofanidis, Composer

Christopher Theofanidis’s music has been performed by many of the world’s leading performing arts organizations, from the London Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic to the San Francisco Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, and the American Ballet Theatre. He is a two-time Grammy nominee for best composition, and his Viola Concerto, recorded with David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony with soloist Richard O’Neill, won the 2021 Grammy for best instrumental solo. Mr. Theofanidis’s work Rainbow Body is one of the most performed pieces of recent decades, having been played by over 200 orchestras worldwide. Mr. Theofanidis is currently coordinator of the composition programs at Yale University and the Aspen Music Festival, and has taught at The Juilliard School and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. He is a frequent collaborator with his partner, the poet Melissa Studdard.

Melissa Studdard, librettist

Melissa Studdard writes poetry, fiction, song cycles, and librettos. Her most recent book is the poetry collection Dear Selection Committee (Jackleg Press). Her work has been featured by PBS, NPR, the New York Times, the Guardian, Ms. magazine, the Best American Poetry blog, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, and has garnered awards such as the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Penn Review Poetry Prize. As a librettist/lyricist, she has had works commissioned by Yale University Glee Club and Yale Choral Artists, the Aspen Music Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, and the University of Michigan School of Music. With Kelli Russell Agodon, she co-hosts the YouTube poetry series Poems You Need. You can find her at www.melissastuddard.com and www.youtube.com/@PoemsYouNeed. 

Siddhartha

Caitlin Lynch, soprano

Caitlin Lynch studied at the University of Michigan and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music before training with the young artist programs of Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival. Highlights of her 2025–26 season include her debut in the title role of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah in Patricia Racette’s production at Opera Omaha, as well as the role Ofglen in Detroit Opera’s production of Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Ms. Lynch returned to the Metropolitan Opera during the 2024–25 season for two Mozart titles: singing the First Lady in the company’s cherished family production of The Magic Flute, and covering Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro. Elsewhere she rejoined the Grand Teton Music Festival as the soprano soloist for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony led by Sir Donald Runnicles. This summer in Aspen, she creates the title role in Christopher Theofanidis’s Siddhartha, She.

Govinda

Maya Kherani, soprano

Indian American soprano Maya Kherani is an acclaimed interpreter of early and new music. Recent season highlights include her debut with the New York Philharmonic in Messiah conducted by Ton Koopman and performances with the American Bach Soloists under Jeffrey Thomas, Portland Baroque Orchestra with Julian Perkins, and Boston Baroque with Martin Pearlman. Upcoming engagements include debuts with the Baltimore Symphony under Patrick Quigley and Opera Lafayette under Nicholas McGegan, as well as returns to Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra with Václav Luks and American Bach Soloists. Career highlights include debuts at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Château de Versailles Spectacles in L’incoronazione di Poppea conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón, which was released on DVD; Glyndebourne in the title role of Pay the Piper (world premiere); Sartorio’s Orfeo at Opéra national de Montpellier conducted by Philippe Jaroussky; and Houston Grand Opera in the world première of Jack Perla’s River of Light. She has performed with the Handel and Haydn Society under Raphaël Pichon, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra with Richard Egarr, and Vancouver Symphony with Otto Tausk. Maya graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering before pursuing music at the San Francisco Conservatory and Boston University Opera Institute. She is currently based in the Bay Area with her husband and two young children.

Kamala

Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor is one of the most compelling vocal artists of her generation. O’Connor performs and inhabits a broad selection of repertoire and is sought after by many of today’s most accomplished composers. She performs with leading orchestras and conductors around the world, with preeminent artists in recitals and chamber music, and with highly acclaimed opera companies. In the 2025–26 season, O’Connor opens the Grand Rapids Symphony season with Beethoven’s Ninth and performs the work again with the San Francisco Symphony; joins the Hudson Valley, New World, and Fort Worth Symphonies for Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs; appears with the Colorado and Winston-Salem Symphonies for Handel’s Messiah; sings Mahler’s Second with the Indianapolis Symphony; returns to the Atlanta Symphony for Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony; and appears with the Nashville Symphony in two programs: Verdi’s Requiem and Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony. Kelley O’Connor has recently premiered works by Thomas Adès, John Corigliano, Kareem Roustom, Joby Talbot, and Bryce Dessner. John Adams wrote the title role of The Gospel According to the Other Mary for O’Connor, and she continues to be the eminent living interpreter of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs. She created the role of Federico García Lorca in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, for which she won a Grammy. For more information, visit Kelleyoconnor.com. 

Dharuna

Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano

American mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford has gained a reputation as an exciting and in-demand singer appearing with many of the finest orchestras and on the stages of the greatest opera houses in the U.S. and Europe. This season she returns to the Metropolitan Opera for the new Simon McBurney production of The Magic Flute and the new production of Salome, to the Dallas Symphony for continued performances as Erda in the Ring cycle, and to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She also makes appearances with the Houston Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, and Rhode Island Philharmonic. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Ms. Mumford has appeared in over 200 performances with the company. Other recent opera engagements have included the premiere of Poul Ruders’s The Thirteenth Child at the Santa Fe Opera; Rossini’s Tancredi with Teatro Nuovo; Henze’s Phaedra, Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, and the world premiere of Daniel Schnyder’s Yardbird at Opera Philadelphia; and L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and the BBC Proms. Also an active concert performer and recitalist, recent engagements have included appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Netherland Radio Philharmonic, and at the Hollywood Bowl and the Ravinia and Tanglewood Festivals.

Gautama

Key’mon W. Murrah, countertenor

Key’mon W. Murrah continues to rise as one of the most sought-after countertenors of his generation. In the 2025–26 season, Murrah returns to the role of Leonardo in Gabriela Lena Frank’s El último sueño de Frida y Diego for his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut, appears with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra to reprise Jake Heggie’s Earth 2.0, joins the Dallas Symphony for the world premiere of Angelica Negron’s For Everything You Keep Losing, and tours with the European baroque ensemble I Gemelli. In the 2024–25 season, Murrah debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl under Gustavo Dudamel in Chichester Psalms, sang Sesto in Giulio Cesare at Opéra National Capitole in Toulouse, and performed the role of Sifare in Mitridate at Opéra Montpellier in a production led by Philippe Jaroussky. He appeared at the Kennedy Center as the 2024 Marian Anderson Award recipient, performed the world premiere of Earth 2.0 with the Fort Worth and Grand Rapids symphonies, and sang Arbace in Artaserse with Haymarket Opera. This summer, he returns to Aspen to sing the role of Gautama in the premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Siddhartha, She.

Abinaswar

Nmon Ford, baritone

Nmon Ford’s recent appearances include the role of Silvio in Pagliacci at Opera Carolina, his critically acclaimed turn as the High Priest in Samson et Dalila at Opera Colorado, and portraying Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at Cincinnati Opera, Detroit Opera, Utah Opera, and Pittsburgh Opera. Prominent appearances of past seasons include his exceptionally reviewed performances as Crown in the ENO/Metropolitan Opera production of Porgy and Bess at English National Opera, and the title role of Don Giovanni at the U.K.’s Dorset Opera Festival. Past successes include Escamillo in Carmen at Opera Colorado, English National Opera, and Calgary Opera; Jochanaan in Salome at Pittsburgh Opera; Don Pizzaro in Fidelio at Cincinnati Opera; and Iago in Otello in concert with the Atlanta Symphony. He has appeared frequently at Hamburg State Opera, including as Scarpia in Tosca, Luna in Il Trovatore, in the title role of Billy Budd, as the Traveler in Death in Venice, and as Thoas in Iphigénie en Tauride, all under the baton of Simone Young. Nmon is renowned for his concert appearances across a variety of different genres, including Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s St. Matthew Passion and Fort Worth Symphony’s The Creation. His great success as The Celebrant in Bernstein’s MASS at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival complemented his other Bernstein repertoire, including Songfest, which he sang with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and with the BBC Symphony at the Barbican Centre.

Aman

Scott Rubén La Marca, tenor

Scott Rubén La Marca is an American tenor pursuing studies at the Yale School of Music. He is a recipient of the Edward & Susan Greenberg Fellowship and an encouragement award from the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. Scott Rubén has been seen in concert with the New York Festival of Song, in the Orient Point residency, and has participated in the 2024 season’s Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program at Caramoor, which was led by Steven Blier and Bénédicte Jourdois. At Yale he originated the role of Charles Darwin in the premiere of Darwin en Patagonia, an opera in Spanish by Mariano Fernandez. Scott Rubén is a 2025 recipient of the Vincent Wilkinson Foundation Scholarship..

Samana Soloist

Christopher Gray, bass-baritone

Christopher Gray is a bass-baritone from Dallas, Texas, in his third year of undergraduate studies in vocal performance at the University of North Texas under the tutelage of Stephen Morscheck. Christopher was the alternate finalist in this year’s UNT College of Music Concerto Competition. Recent roles include Masetto (Don Giovanni) with Varna International Music Academy and the Professor (That Hell-Bound Train) with UNT Opera. This season Christopher has sung Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) with UNT Opera, Masetto (Don Giovanni) with Music On Site Inc., and The Sodbuster (Proving Up) and Colline (La bohème) with the Sherman Symphony Orchestra. Christopher Gray is the Rosemary and Richard Furman Opera Apprentice and a beneficiary of the Merle Chambers Fellowships Fund.

Samana Soloist

Brett Hunter, tenor

Brett Hunter is a twenty-year-old tenor currently living in Charleston, South Carolina. He studies vocal performance at the College of Charleston with his teacher, Harold Meers. Previous roles include Alfred in Die Fledermaus, Marius Pontemercy in Les Misérables, and Raoul de Changy in The Phantom of the Opera. Equally versed in concert work, Brett has been the tenor soloist in Finzi’s Dies Natalis, Bach’s Cantata BWV 140, and Schumann’s Spanisches Liederspiel. Brett frequently performs alongside the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Brett was a studio artist at the Music Academy of the West in 2023. Brett Hunter is a 2025 Mercedes T. Bass Opera Fellow.

Kantorei

The Kantorei Festival Chorus is comprised of members, alumni, and friends of Kantorei, a Denver-based choral ensemble comprised of volunteer singers under the direction of managing artistic director Joel M. Rinsema. Formed in 1997 under the leadership of six friends and artistic director Richard Larson, Kantorei has established itself as one of the nation’s premier choral ensembles. Its choral artists have studied at schools with strong music programs across the United States, and serve as choral music educators, conductors, vocal instructors, doctors, social workers, optometrists, counselors, clinical psychologists, accountants, realtors, and more, all brought together in weekly rehearsals for shared artistic excellence and community. Frequently performing at major choral conventions across the U.S., Kantorei has also toured the world, sung under the batons of conductors of international acclaim, and commissioned and premiered choral works from renowned composers. Kantorei has released two recordings on the Naxos label and anticipates the release of their third in the fall of 2025, this time on the Decca label. Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc. publishes the Kantorei Choral series. Kantorei’s vision is “to elevate the human experience through choral excellence.”

Joel M. Rinsema, chorus director

Joel M. Rinsema joined Kantorei in 2014 as its second conductor in twenty-eight years, leading the organization to tremendous audience growth and nearly quadrupling its budget. A champion of new choral works, he has commissioned and premiered compositions by renowned composers including Kim André Arnesen, Ola Gjeilo, Sarah Quartel, Jake Runestad, Christopher Tin, and Eric Whitacre. His Naxos recordings with Kantorei have achieved commercial success, with Sing, Wearing the Sky (2020) and Infinity (2018) reaching top Classical chart positions. Song Offerings: Choral Works by Christopher Tin is set to be released in the fall of 2025, this time on the Decca label. Prior to Kantorei, Joel spent twenty-three years with the Grammy award-winning Phoenix Chorale as president, CEO, and assistant conductor. He secured their Chandos Records contract, which resulted in recordings that secured eight Grammy nominations and two wins. He appears on all Phoenix Chorale recordings and was a soloist on the Grammy-winning Spotless Rose. A recipient of Chorus America’s Louis Botto Award for innovation, Joel has also worked as the North American choral promotion manager for Oxford University Press (2017–20). He holds degrees from Arizona State University and Whitworth University, and serves as artistic advisor and principal guest conductor of Guatemala’s choral organization Vocalis

lauri stallings, choreographer

lauri stallings is a Georgia choreographer who works both inside and outside of art world institutions through her site-responsive process. She works with common materials to invoke particular places, collective voices, and communities of movement. Whether inhabiting a forest of eighty acres or confined to the surface of a beam of light, the origin of stallings’s art extends outwards from the primary projections of the feet and hands. She is a Creative Time artist, recipient of an Artadia Award, and a USA Artists nominee (2022, 2018), and was the High Museum of Art’s first choreographer-in-residence. She developed the Traveling Show, a long-term project engaging rural South communities with support from the Rauschenberg Foundation. Since 2010, stallings has worked with Maestro Robert Spano on staged operas, ballets, and community-based works including Saariaho’s Maa, Gluck’s Orfeo, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and cloth, a response to Spano’s piano sonata Four Elements. stallings is the recipient of the Florence Biennale’s Lorenzo il Magnifico prize and a Bogliasco Center Fellow. She was Georgia Tech’s resident artist, and is the inaugural recipient of Emory University’s Community Impact Artist Award. In 2009, stallings founded glo Platform, a nonprofit artist-led initiative located in the nineteenth-century industrial space of the Goat Farm Arts Center.

Anne Patterson Director, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Anne Patterson is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her body of work consists of theater design and direction, paintings, sculptures, and installations. As a synesthete (when she hears sound, she sees color and shape), Patterson seeks to create an experience where viewers’ senses can overlap, producing a constructed synesthesia. She is known for her large-scale immersive textile installations. Anne’s theatrical and symphonic partnerships have included major venues across the United States: Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, the Wilma Theater, the Kennedy Center, Alliance Theater, and prestigious orchestras throughout the country (Atlanta, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). Her work has been exhibited at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, at Sarasota Art Museum (with Patrick Harlin), and at the Trapholt Museum in Denmark. Her installations have hung in Grace Cathedral (San Francisco), the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York), at Milan Fashion Week in collaboration with Ermenegildo Zegna, and at Capital One World Headquarters in Virginia. She is the recipient of multiple CODA awards as well as a 2008 Creative Capital Award. She is a graduate of Yale University, where she earned a bachelor’s in architecture, and the Slade School of Art in London, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in theater design. She is a fellow of the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat.

Adam Larsen Projection Designer

Adam Larsen is a projection designer and documentary filmmaker based in Asheville, North Carolina. He has contributed to over 250 productions in theater, dance, symphony, and opera, collaborating with some of the leading figures in these fields. His diverse credits include Broadway’s LoveMusik directed by Hal Prince, and the world premieres of John Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries at Santa Fe Opera, Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves at Opera Philadelphia, and David Lang’s Prisoner of the State with the New York Philharmonic. Adam also designed The Gospel at Colonus at the Athens, Edinburgh, and Spoleto festivals, Esperanza Spalding’s 12 Little Spells tour, and the world premiere of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the Singapore International Festival. Other credits include Janáček’s From the House of the Dead at Canadian Opera; Bernstein’s MASS at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lincoln Center; The Pelleas Project at the Cincinnati Symphony; Adams’s A Flowering Tree and Handel’s Agrippina at Opera Omaha; and Britten’s Peter Grimes, Bernstein’s On the Town, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, as well as all eleven seasons of the SoundBox series at San Francisco Symphony. Adam’s films include Undersung, which chronicles the experiences of caregivers for severely disabled family members, and Neurotypical, which explores autism from the perspective of autistic individuals and premiered on PBS’s POV.

Seth Reiser, Lighting Designer

Seth Reiser (lighting designer) is a New York-based designer who works in theater, opera, dance, and music. Seth’s work has been seen throughout the United States and internationally. Seth recently collaborated with Anne Patterson and Patrick Harlin on their museum installation The Truth of the Night Sky in Sarasota, Florida. Other recent work in music includes Schoenberg’s Erwartung at San Francisco Symphony directed by Peter Sellars; Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with the Philharmonia Baroque Opera in San Francisco directed by Christopher Alden; Henze’s El cimarrón at Festival Impulso in Mexico City directed by Robert Castro; the set and lighting design for Bernstein’s MASS at the LA Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer; J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Park Avenue Armory directed by Peter Sellars; John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary at the San Francisco Symphony directed by Elkhannah Pulitzer; Sufjan Stevens’s Round Up at BAM; and Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux étoiles . . . with the St. Louis Symphony directed by Deb O’Grady, a production seen throughout the United States, at the Sydney Opera House, and at the Barbican. Seth received his bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and his Master of Fine Arts from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. For more information, visit his website at www.sethreiserdesign.com. 

Patrick Harlin Soundscape Composer

Patrick Harlin’s interdisciplinary work in soundscape ecology—a field that aims to better understand ecosystems through sound—has taken him to imperiled regions around the world, including the Amazon rainforest and the Book Cliffs of Utah. Most recently he recorded soundscapes at historic locations of the Buddha in India and Nepal for Siddhartha, She. Recent works include Truth of The Night Sky, an immersive art and music installation in collaboration with Anne Patterson; The Time Traveler, a band consortium presented by thirty ensembles; and the first ever surround-sound concert at MIT’s brand-new Tull Concert Hall. As a composer, Harlin’s music is permeated by Classical, Jazz, and electronic traditions, all underpinned by a love and respect for the great outdoors. His compositions have been performed on subscription series concerts by the St. Louis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, the Rochester, Calgary, and Reno Philharmonics, ROCO Houston, and countless others. Recent recordings include Wilderness Anthology on the Kinetic Ensemble’s Billboard chart-topping debut album and Rapture on the Grammy-nominated album American Rapture by the Rochester Philharmonic. Harlin was the inaugural composer-in-residence with Michigan’s Lansing Symphony Orchestra (2019–23) and the inaugural winner of the Aspen/Hermitage Prize. Harlin teaches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.