faculty

Sherrill Milnes

Artistic Director

Sherrill Milnes is universally acclaimed as the foremost operatic baritone of his generation. With his powerful voice, commanding stage presence and rugged handsomeness, he received the kind of adulation that is usually reserved for tenors. He sang over 650 performances at the Met, where he was honored with sixteen new productions, seven opening nights, and ten national telecasts. As a leading artist in all of the world’s great opera houses, Mr. Milnes performed and recorded with the likes of Domingo, Pavarotti, Sutherland, Sills, Horne, Price, and Tebaldi. He is the winner of three Grammy Awards, and the most recorded American singer of his time. In 2008 he received the Opera News Award for Distinguished Achievement.
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Maria Zouves

Executive Director

Maria Zouves is an educator, director, producer and writer. She is Executive Director of the Sherrill Milnes VOICE Programs − VOICExperience Foundation and the Savannah VOICE Festival – which she co-founded with her husband, Sherrill Milnes, to provide training for aspiring young artists and foster new audiences for the vocal arts. The Greek-American soprano has sung leading roles in the regional U.S., made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1997, and has recorded under the VAI label.
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Beth Roberts

For over 20 years Beth Roberts has been a dedicated and accomplished voice teacher and music educator. She has been on the faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music since 1996 and has served as Coordinator of the Vocal Department since 2001. Her voice studio at Mannes has produced principal artists in many national and international professional venues, including the San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Saint Louis Opera, Covent Garden and La Scala. Students of Ms. Roberts have been finalists and winners of such major vocal competitions as the Metropolitan Opera National Finals, the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, the Giuseppe di Stefano Competition, the Jenny Lind Competition, the Gerda Lissner Competition, the Giulio Gari Competition and the Joy of Singing Competition. Others have entered young artist programs at Merola, Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass, Santa Fe, Tanglewood and Chautauqua. Ms. Roberts has been a vocal instructor for the Washington National Opera Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca (with the University of Cincinnati), a guest lecturer at the Classical Singer Convention, and an adjunct faculty member at the Westminster Choir College. She has served as an adjudicator for numerous competitions, including the Fulbright Scholarship and the Finals of the Concours de Musique du Canada. She is currently a faculty member of the International Vocal Arts Institute, and she gives frequent master classes at Yale University. A lyric soprano, Ms. Roberts has sung with many opera companies throughout the United States, including the Santa Fe Opera and the Washington Opera, and performed numerous concerts at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall. She was a Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Winner and a Liederkranz Foundation Competition Winner. She has also recorded for radio and television. Ms. Roberts earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the Screen Actors Guild.

Mark Schnaible

Mark Schnaible has served on the voice faculties of the summer opera programs; International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy, Intermezzo Foundation in Hartford, Connecticut and Brugge, Belgium, Sherrill Milnes VOICExperience Foundation in Disney, Tampa, Florida as well as Savannah, Georgia and the LidalNorth International Opera Workshop in Oslo, Norway. He is a former Associate Professor of Voice at Boston University, a former Visiting Associate Professor of Voice at Rutgers University and remains on the voice faculty of Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music. Since 2001 he has maintained a private voice studio in New York City where his students continue to excel and have been chosen for young artist programs including Chautauqua Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Ashlawn-Highland Opera Festival, Utah Festival Opera, Santa Fe Opera Apprenticeship Program, Ohio Light Opera, Sarasota and San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program as well as winning numerous competitions in both the United States and Europe. Bass-baritone Mark Schnaible has sung with Oper Leipzig, Theater Lübeck, Bergen National Opera, Polish National Opera, Athens Megaron Theater, Wien Modern, Zürich Opera, Choregies d’Orange Festival, Glimmerglass Opera, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and with such notable conductors as Bertran de Billy, Edo de Waart, Christoph Eschenbach, Seiji Ozawa, Michel Plasson and Franz Welser-Möst.He holds an honorary Doctor of Music degree for his contributions to performance and teaching. Mark Schnaible lives in New York City with his wife Patricia and their miniature Havanese Panda.

Christian Sebek

Tenor Christian Sebek is a  “Cross-Over“ performer/teacher in New York City He has performed from Opera to Broadway, Off-Broadway, television, film and international concert halls. Ubaldo Piangi in The Phantom of the Opera, 25th anniversary and over 1600 performances. Created the lead role of Nathanael in Thomas Cabaniss’s Off-Broadway, contemporary opera The Sandman. Andrew Miller’s The Birth of Christ performed for Pope Benedict and the Vatican; starring Jim Caviezel, Michael York, and Lou Gossett Jr. Jingles Artist/25 years; Comedy Central, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Lesser Prophets with John Turturro, Scott Glen, Elizabeth Perkins. Vocal Director: Harlem Aria, starring Damon Wayans, Paul Sorvino and Christian Carmargo. Opera highlights: The New York Times “possessing a marvelous voice,” Houston Chronicle —Rodolfo “full of visceral excitement. Il Trovatore/Manrico, Rodolfo/La Boheme, Cavaradossi/Tosca, Radames/Aida and Calaf/Turandot, Otello, Samson Luigi/Il Tabarro, Pinkerton/Madame Butterfly, Canio/Pagliacci, Turiddu/Cavalleria Rusticana, Don Jose/Carmen, Alfredo/La Traviata and Michele/Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street. Former General Director of Stern’s World Music Record Label/Latin Billboard Top Ten–Africando 1992-2008. Former Artistic Administrator of Chautauqua Opera in 2001/2002. www.christiansebek.com 

Maria Spacagna

Providence born soprano, Maria Spacagna, has been a regular guest artist at many of the world’s most prestigious opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the Dallas Opera, Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Santa Fe Opera Festival, Florida Grand Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Arena di Verona, Teatro San Carlo, the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago, the Spoleto Festival, the Zurich Opera, Bavarian State Opera of Munich, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opera Theater of Cologne, Opera Theater of Montreal, Canadian Opera, Shanghai Grand Opera, Capetown Opera of South Africa and many others. She was the first American-born artist to perform the role of MADAMA BUTTERFLY at La Scala. She has recorded for Vox Classics, the first commercial recording of the 1904 La Scala world premiere version of Puccini’s MADAMA BUTTERFLY. VARIETY, the American daily of the entertainment industry has written, “Spacagna is the Cio-Cio-San of our generation.” The Spacagna Butterfly was selected by FANFARE, the recording industry quarterly, as one of the three opera recordings of the year for 1997. Fanfare, places her recording of the role along with those of Tebaldi, Scotto and Toti dal Monte. Her recordings of the title role of Mascagni’s Lodoletta for Hungaroton and Vivetta in Cilea’sL’Arlesiana for Harmonia Mundi have earned critical acclaim. Ms. Spacagna is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she received a Bachelor of Music in Voice and a Master of Music in Voice with Distinction. She was honored with an Alumni of the Year Award in 2004 from NEC. She was a member of the Juilliard Opera Center at the Julliard School of Music. She is the recipient of 2 George London grants, the Metropolitan Opera National Council, Rockefeller Foundation and the Minna Kaufmann Rudd Distinguished Performance Award. Ms. Spacagna is a recipient of a Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. In March, 2012, she received an award from the Italian Consulate General in Boston for Outstanding Achievement in Art, Culture and Entertainment. She is also Honorary President of the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra and has received its first Distinguished Artist Award. At the invitation of its founder, Sherrill Milnes, Ms. Spacagna is a faculty member of VOICExperience, a training program for emerging professional singers. She was Lecturer in Voice at Boston University, College of Fine Arts from 2005 until 2012. Presently, she is Associate Professor of Voice at Carnegie Mellon University School of Fine Arts.

Jonathan Walker-VanKuren

African American educator and tenor, Jonathan Walker-VanKuren has enjoyed a successful career both on and off the operatic stage performing works of the jazz, musical theatre, art song, and opera repertoires while having taught students from all around the country. His students have continued on to study music at institutions such as Texas A&M, Michigan State University, and Belmont University while then moving on to pursue careers in musical theatre, opera, and popular music in the recording industry. Most recently Mr. Walker-VanKuren was seen as Thamar in Opera Southwest’s revival production of Ali Baba. During the 2019-2020 season Mr. Walker-VanKuren premiered his solo voice recital entitled, “Songs my mother taught me…” which is a celebration of African American History through spirituals sponsored by Fort Worth Opera. Mr. Walker-VanKuren is currently an Assistant Professor of Voice and Artist Teacher of Studio Voice and Music Theatre at Lebanon Valley College while also maintaining an active recital and operatic performing schedule. 

Andrew Bisantz

Conductor Andrew Bisantz has received accolades from Opera News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Toronto Globe and Mail, and The Boston Globe; three of his recent productions have been counted among the top 10 musical events of the season in their respective cities. Recent engagements include American Lyric Theater, Florida Grand Opera, Opera Saratoga, Opera Tampa, McGill University, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Virginia Opera. Mr. Bisantz is Artistic Director and Conductor of Eugene Opera, where he has led 20 productions in his eleven years with the company. He has conducted over 60 productions for companies throughout the U.S., including The Turn of the Screw, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Greek for Boston Lyric Opera, Patience and Le portrait de Manon for Glimmerglass Opera, La traviata and La fanciulla del West for Virginia Opera, and ten productions for Florida Grand Opera. Orchestrally, he has appeared with the Buffalo and Rochester Philharmonics, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, and the Virginia Symphony. He has spent a decade on the faculty of the VOICExperience / Savannah Voice Festival. Next season, in addition to his continued role as Artistic Director of Eugene Opera, he returns to Tri-Cities Opera to conduct Tosca and Opera Tampa for Aida. His recording of Fredrick Kaufman’s Stars and Distances and Seven Sisters is available on Navona Records.

Peiwen Chen

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ms. Chen graduated in 1990 from the National Academy of Art with highest honors. In 1992, Ms. Chen entered Mannes College of Music and in 1994, she performed Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini, by Rachmaninoff with the Mannes Orchestra. After she graduated with a special piano award, Ms. Chen made her New York recital debut at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in 1995 as a winner of New York Concert Artists Competition. In December 2001, Ms. Chen made her Paris debut in Salle Olivier Messiaen at Maison de Radio France with Concerto pathétique for two pianos by Liszt. In March 2004, Ms. Chen performed both Mozart and Mendelssohn Piano Concertos for 2 pianos with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra. In summer 2009, she gave a gala concert to raise funds for young musicians in Taiwan at the National Concert Hall in Taipei. In 2011, Ms. Chen performed Mozart Concertos for 2 and 3 pianos in Klaipeda, Lithuania and complete J. S. Bach Concerti for 2 pianos in Moldova, Lithuania and France. She has performed Brahms No. 1 Piano Concerto, Grieg Piano Concerto in New York City; Czerny piano concerto for one piano, four hands and complete Rachmaninoff music for 2 pianos in France and Lithuania. The other recent highlights of her performances include Schumann piano concerto, Mozart Piano concerto No 19 with Centre Symphony in NYC; Ms. Chen performs frequently piano duo concerts with her husband, Alexander Paley in many countries. In 1998, she served on the music staff for the production of Fedora by Umberto Giordano at the Washington National Opera as well as for the Metropolitan Opera Guild Productions and Amato Opera in New York for many seasons. She was the official pianist for the Classical Singer Magazine Competition in Shanghai and Guangzhou. Ms. Chen is currently serving as music preparation/conductor with Regina Opera and New York Lyric Opera Theater. Ms. Chen has collaborated with Licia Abanese, Elly Ameling, Regina Resnik, Evelyn Lear, Diana Soviero, Deborah Voigt, Ruth Falcon, Mignon Dunn, Sherrill Milnes, and Olga Peretyatko among others. In 2019, Ms. Chen gave a series of master classes with the artists from Lithuania State Opera in Vilnius. Ms. Chen has been a member of faculty for the IVAI, CVAI in Montreal, CoOPERAtive Program in Princeton, NJ, NYLOT summer program in NYC, VOICExperience in Florida, and Savannah VOICE Festival. In 2019, she served as a member of jury and pianist for the gala concert for International Music Competition in Osaka, Japan. Since 1998 she has been on faculty at Mannes College of Music.

Dan Gettinger

Dan Gettinger is happy to be returning to the Savannah Voice Festival this summer, serving as musical director for the Festival’s finale concert.Other workshops Dan has participated in as a music director, vocal coach, and pianist, include Voicexperience in New York, Orlando, and Tampa; the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, Illinois; Lidal North International Opera Workshop in Oslo, Norway; the Manhattan School Of Music Summer Voice Festival in New York; the International Vocal Arts Institute in TelAviv, Israel, and Montreal, Canada; and the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy. Dan has worked as a coach and principal pianist for Palm Beach Opera, Opera Tampa, Chautauqua Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Florida Grand Opera, rehearsing their productions of Macbeth, Barber Of Seville, Tales Of Hoffmann, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, La Rondine, Lucia Di Lammermoor, The Merry Widow, La Traviata, Aida, Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, Un Ballo In Maschera, La Boheme, Don Pasquale, Tosca, Thais, Otello, The Pearl Fishers, and Andrea Chenier. As a recital pianist, he has performed with Patricia Racette, Heidi Grant Murphy, and Florence Quivar. He has also served as a judge for prestigious opera competitions including the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Competition, and the Loren L. Zachary Society Competition.
Dan has held university faculty positions at Florida International University; Brooklyn College; The Hartt School at The University Of Hartford, where he was the music director of the musical theater department; and Manhattan School of Music in New York, serving as the music director of the American Musical Theater Ensemble. In addition to opera, Dan is equally experienced in the genre of musical theater, having conducted productions of My Fair Lady, Carousel, and Sweeney Todd for Shreveport Opera, and having worked as assistant conductor of a national tour of A Little Night Music starring Patrice Munsel, as well as a national tour of No, No, Nanette starring June Allyson. He also worked as pianist and musical arranger for both Diahann Carroll and Debbie Reynolds for their nightclub acts at the Frontier, Desert Inn, Riviera, and Sands hotels in Las Vegas. Dan began his career singing and dancing in productions of summer stock musicals including Camelot, Cabaret, Mame, Oliver, Man Of La Mancha, and Fiddler On The Roof, hoofing alongside performers including, respectively, Hal Holbrook, Joel Grey, Ann Miller, Sid Caesar, Richard Kiley, and Robert Merrill.

Jorge Parodi

Internationally acclaimed conductor Jorge Parodi has worked extensively in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Recent credits include Lucrezia Borgia and I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Buenos Aires Lírica in Argentina; The Turn of the Screw for the Castleton Festival in Virginia and The Banff Centre in Canada; María de Buenos Aires for The Atlanta Opera and Opera Grand Rapids; Il barbiere si Siviglia for Opera Tampa and the Savannah Voice Festival; and L’enfant et les sortilèges for The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center. Reviewed as having “the most expressive conducting hands since Stokowski” by the New York Daily News, Argentinean born Jorge Parodi has worked with such companies as the Teatro Colón in Argentina, the Volgograd Opera in Russia, the Encuentros Internacionales de Opera in Mexico, the Tokyo International Vocal Arts Academy in Japan, and the International Vocal Arts Institute in Israel; and has been involved with the Savannah VOICE Festival since its creation. He has collaborated with such artists as Isabel Leonard, Eglise Gutierrez, Tito Capobianco, Aprile Millo and Rufus Wainwright and has assisted conductors Lorin Maazel and Julius Rudel, among others.Maestro Parodi is the Music Director of Opera in Williamsburg (Virginia), and the Music Director of the Senior Opera Theatre at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has led its productions to critical acclaim, including the American premieres of Délibes’ Le Roi l’a dit and Paisiello’s Nina.

Laura Melano Flanagan

Laura Melano Flanagan is a psychotherapist in private practice with offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn.  She received her Masters in Social Work from Hunter College and a Certificate from the Advanced Institute for Psychoanalysis.  She has taught in the Post Masters Programs at both Hunter and NYU and is a long–standing adjunct faculty professor at the Smith College School for Social Work.  She is also a Field Faculty Advisor for the Smith interns who are placed in various agencies in New York. She is the co-author of the psychodynamic theory textbook Inside Out and Outside In, the fifth edition of which will be released in 2020. Laura’s involvement in working with young opera singers began over a decade ago when she started working with her brother, Fabrizio Melano, in the Sherrill Milnes VOICExperience “Opera as Drama” program in New York City.  Since then she has become part of the VE faculty, continuing to coach, work on productions, and give Master Classes both in New York and Savannah.  She has also worked with Fabrizio in the Juilliard productions of Dialogue of the Carmelites (in which, to her great delight, she got to play a nun for two days) and Armide.  Recently Laura has provided psychological consultation to OperaRox for the company’s newly commissioned opera Ghost Variations, which will be produced in 2020. 

Fabrizio Melano

Melano, stage director, is an established figure on the international opera scene, having worked in leading opera houses throughout the world for more than 40 years. He began a long-standing relationship with the Metropolitan Opera in 1969 and has directed 21 operas there, among them seven new or revised productions.
He directed Tony Randall in his last play, Pirandello’s Right You Are, with the National Actors Theater and staged a new musical, Asylum, at the York Theater Company. In April 2010 Juilliard presented his production of Dialogues des Carmélites, and the Met and Juilliard his production and staging of Armide in February 2012.

Chad Sonka

Chad Sonka is establishing himself as a versatile American baritone, teacher, and director. He was a featured artist with the Simon Estes Young Artist Foundation this spring. Most recently, he performed as the baritone soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem at Carnegie Hall with Iowa State University and Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with Oneota Valley Community Orchestra. Previous performing credits: Tosca (Scarpia – cover) with Central City Opera; Gianni Schicchi (Marco) with Savannah Music Festival; Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote) and Carmen (Dancaïro) with Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre; The Mother of Us All (Virgil T.), The Rape of Lucretia (Junius), Faust (Wagner), Elijah (Elijah) with Manhattan School of Music; and Amahl and the Night Visitors (King Melchior) with Nevada Opera. He was the first-place winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions – Iowa District in 2017. Chad is an active voice teacher and director and currently serves on voice faculty at Iowa State University. He is also the Education and Outreach Coordinator with Savannah VOICE Festival and VOICExperience. Directing credits include multiple scenes programs, Cendrillon (Viardot), Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck), and The Little Prince (Portman).

Michael Ching

Michael Ching is a composer, songwriter, conductor, and former arts administrator. His recent opera, Speed Dating Tonight! was commissioned and premiered by the Janiec Opera Company of the Brevard Music Center. Since its premiere in July 2013, Speed Dating Tonight! has been produced fifteen times, including professional productions at Tri-Cities Opera, Amarillo Opera, and Microscopic Opera (Pittsburgh), and universities such as UT-Austin, the University of Memphis, Ithaca College, and the University of Central Florida. His 1996 opera Buoso’s Ghost is a sequel to Gianni Schicchi It has proved lasting, with recent performances at Texas State University and the UNC-Chapel Hill. It will be performed at University of Central Florida next season. His 2010 opera, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opera a cappella was premiered by Opera Memphis, Playhouse on the Square, and DeltaCappella. A CD featuring the original cast was released on Albany Records in 2014. Other works include Corps of Discovery, commissioned by the University of Missouri to commemorate the Lewis and Clark Expedition and several one act operas. From 1993-2010, Michael was Artistic Director of Opera Memphis, where he was also General Director for much of the period. While at Opera Memphis, he participated in the seven million dollar campaign to build the Clark Opera Memphis Center, a headquarters and rehearsal studio for the company. He is currently Music Director of Nickel City Opera in Western New York, where he recently conducted their production of The Marriage of Figaro. This fall he will conduct his new orchestral reduction of Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe at Amarillo Opera. Other guest conducting engagements have included companies in Honolulu, Nashville, Fargo, and New Jersey. Michael has served on the artistic staffs of the opera companies of Miami, Virginia, and Chautauqua, and was trained at the Houston Opera Studio, where he studied opera composition with Carlisle Floyd. Michael attended Duke University where his composition teacher was Robert Ward. Michael lives with family in Ames, Iowa.