Artists

The Croatian Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1988 and has since hosted more than 600 artists and premiered nearly 100 works by Croatian and foreign composers. The orchestra has collaborated with eminent maestros such as Nikolai Alexeev, Johannes Wildner, Enrico Dindo, Berislav Klobučar, Milan Horvat, Igor Gjadrov, Gleb Nikitin, Alan Buribaev, Uroš Lajovic, Daniel Bortolosy, Michał Dworzynski, Lawrence Rene, Nicholas Milton, Tibor Boganyi, Nikša Bareza, Saša Britvić, Vjekoslav Šutej, Ivan Repušić, Guido Mancusi, Michalis Economou, and others. Chief Conductors were Kazushi Ono, Pavle Dešpalj, Dian Tchobanov, and Miran Vaupotić.

Baritone Oliver Worthington has received international and regional acclaim for performances as an opera singer, oratorio soloist, and recitalist with organizations like Indianapolis Opera, Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, San Antonio Opera, San Antonio Symphony, Hill Country Lyric, Austin Opera, and Lone Star Lyric in roles ranging from Eisenstein to The Duke of Plaza Toro. A champion of living composers, he frequently premieres new works. Worthington is the Vocal Area Coordinator and the Producing Director of Butler Opera Theater at Butler University in Indianapolis.

Dana Zenobi has earned national recognition as an interpreter of Art Song by women. She has also garnered operatic success in roles ranging from Mozart and Verdi to Mark Adamo and Philip Glass, appearing with Austin Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, The Living Opera, Opera in the Heights, line upon line percussion ensemble, and the Austin Civic Orchestra. Both her performing and her studio teaching have received accolades from The American Prize.

Pianist Chuck Dillard is a multi-faceted and sought-after performer, educator, conductor, lecturer, producer, and arranger. Highlights from his 2020-2021 season include performing with Met Opera baritone Damien Geter, producing a virtual production of Menotti’s “The Old Maid and the Thief,” presenting a lecture — “Beyond the Pants Role” — for the College Music Society, and speaking at a Symposium on Transgender and Non-Binary Voice Pedagogy.

A graduate of the University of Alberta (B.M., Piano) and The Juilliard School (M.M., D.M.A., Piano), Maria Thompson Corley has performed in venues like the Liszt Academy. Her solo and collaborative recordings are released by Naxos, Albany, MSR Classical, and others. Excerpts from her albums have been featured in films and television soundtracks, as well as on radio and digital platforms, nationally and internationally.

Maria Clark has been acclaimed for her virtuosic skills of expressive singing across the idioms of Opera, Oratorio, and Art Song, and has been critiqued as possessing “The Voice of An Angel.” One of the most important aspects of her vocal abilities is her superb control of a very large instrument, all the while presenting a beautiful, rich, and layered voice.

Adrienne Elisha (1958-2017), a native of Glen Cove NY, studied violin and composition at Indiana University. She earned an Artist Diploma in Viola Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctorate in Composition at the University of Buffalo. As a performer, she specialized in the performance of contemporary music, playing in new-music ensembles such as the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Slee Sinfonietta, as well as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

Elaine Greenfield is a widely acclaimed pianist, recognized internationally for her performances, recordings, and teaching, with a distinguished career as soloist/lecture recitalist, and collaborative artist. She has received rave reviews from The New York Times for performances at Carnegie, Merkin, and Steinway Halls; and nationally for performances at the Phillips Collection, Boston’s Gardner Museum; plus, university and community concert series coast to coast. She has been televised and broadcast over national and international radio, including the BBC, NPR, WGBH, WNYC, WAMC, WVPR, and KBAQ. Elaine was a founder of VT Contemporary Music Ensemble, and toured for two decades with Philadelphia flutist & NY Concert Artist Guild winner, Pamela Guidetti.

Dominick DiOrio (b. 1984) is a conductor and composer who has won widespread acclaim for his contributions to American music. He has been recognized with The American Prize in both Choral Composition (2014) and Choral Performance (2019, with NOTUS). Since 2012, he has been a member of the choral conducting faculty at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he serves as Professor of Choral Conducting and leads the select, new-music chamber chorus NOTUS. DiOrio has conducted ensembles around the world, from the Houston Chamber Choir and Choral Arts Initiative in the United States to Allmänna Sången and Ars Veritas abroad. In July 2020, he became the 14th Artistic Director & Conductor of the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia.

Scottish composer Helen MacKinnon studied music at The University of Glasgow, specializing in composition and graduating with a Bachelor of Music First Class Honours. Her most notable work of that period was Crossing the Domain, a setting of Scottish poet Edwin Morgan’s poem From the Domain of Arnheim for female voices and percussion. MacKinnon cites her compositional influences as being her Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, and cinematic music.

Violinist Audrey Wright is a multifaceted artist across solo and chamber music, as well as orchestral realms. She is Associate Concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Concertmaster of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, has performed across the globe in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, and the Vatican, and has soloed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Cape Symphony Orchestra. With a passion for innovative programming and juxtaposing a wide range of musical styles, her repertoire spans the early 17th century to modern day and her performing experience includes the full spectrum of these musical styles, from period performance practice to the premiering of new and personally-commissioned works.

Andy Teirstein’s music has been described by The New York Times as “magically atmospheric,” “glimmering, restless,” and “tumultuously exuberant.” A student of Leonard Bernstein and Henry Brant, Teirstein has composed film scores for BBC and PBS, the operas Winter Man and A Blessing on the Moon, and movement theater pieces including The Wild (La MaMa E.T.C.)  and The Vagabonds inspired by William Blake. The Village Voice wrote that his music “seems to speak in celestial accents of some utopia whose chief industry is dancing,” and he composes often for choreographers, including Stephen Petronio, Donald Byrd, and Liz Lerman.  As a musician, he has appeared with Paul Simon, Pete Seeger, and The Vanaver Caravan. He has acted in the Broadway show Barnum, the TV series Search for Tomorrow, the film Sophie’s Choice, and Woody Sez, an off-Broadway show about Woody Guthrie.

Joseph Summer began playing French horn at the age of 7. While attending the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina at age 14 he studied composition with the eminent Czech composer Karel Husa. At age 15 he was accepted at Oberlin Conservatory, studied with Richard Hoffmann, Schönberg’s amanuensis, and graduated with a B.M. in Music Composition in 1976. Recruited by Robert Page, Dean of the Music Department at Carnegie Mellon University, Summer taught music theory at CMU before leaving to pursue composition full time.

Gillian Zammit is a versatile soprano with a varied repertoire, who trained with Carlo Bergonzi and Victoria de los Angeles. Opera productions include The Turn of The Screw, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflote, and Orphée et Eurydice. She has performed with Joseph Calleja, Andrea Bocelli, Eugene Kohn, and Emma Kirkby among others.

Jonathan Rhodes Lee is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He studied harpsichord with Laurette Goldberg, Joscelyn Godwin, Davitt Moroney, and Jacques Ogg. He holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of California, Berkeley, and he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Netherlands. Lee’s work as a musicologist focuses on 18th-century repertoires and film music, and his recordings can be heard on the MSR, Equilibrium, and Navona labels.

Robert Fleisher’s music has been heard throughout the United States and in more than a dozen other countries and is available on Albany, Capstone, Centaur, Navona, Neuma, Petrichor, Phasma, PnOVA, Sarton, and SEAMUS labels. His acoustic works have been praised as “eloquent” (Ann Arbor News), “lovely and emotional” (Musicworks), “astoundingly attractive” (Perspectives of New Music), and “ingenious” (The Strad).

Frederic Glesser grew up near Toledo OH where his early musical influences were rock, jazz, and music of the Baroque era. He studied jazz with Gene Parker and had flute studies with Kay Hartsfeld. He was later educated at Kent State University (Bachelor of Music) in Ohio where he studied composition with James Waters and David Stewart, and studied flute with Raymond DeMattia and Maurice Sharp, former principal flutist of the Cleveland Orchestra.

David Klock is a composer of instrumental concert music as well as collaborative pieces for multimedia projects. His works have been featured in "Playas de Tijuana Mural Project," a documentary by Lizbeth de la Cruz Santana, Humanizing Deportation, a community-based digital storytelling project, The Neighborhood Arts Collective, a multidisciplinary arts organization, and published by T.U.X. People’s Music.

Chi Young Song (he/him/his), violinist and educator, has engaged with audiences throughout Asia, North America, and Europe. A passionate collaborator in both orchestral and chamber music, Chi Young is frequently invited to lead and perform with various ensembles and orchestras throughout the United States. As a recitalist, he is committed to putting into dialogue the works of marginalized and underrepresented composers within traditional repertoire.

An award-winning composer and songwriter, Monika Gurak graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree with honours from the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, as well as with a Master of Arts degree from the Department of Music, York University. York University additionally gave her a merit-based entrance scholarship. She also took courses in writing songs and music production at Berklee Online, where she received a certificate. In addition, Monika is an alumna of the Institute of Iberian and Ibero-American Studies, University of Warsaw.