Biography from Naxos:

Christopher Lyndon-Gee was honoured as one of only three hundred conductors included in Naxos's 600-page book and CD compilation A to Z of Conductors, covering the entire history of the art-form from Hans von Bulow and Arthur Nikisch to the present day. Christopher Lyndon-Gee was nominated for Grammy's in 1998 for 'Best Orchestral Performance' for the first volume of his groundbreaking series of the complete works of Igor Markevitch (originally released on Marco Polo); in 2003 for the world premiere recording of George Rochberg's Symphony No 5 (Naxos 8.559115) on Naxos American Classics; and again in 2007 for Hans Werner Henze's Violin Concertos Nos 1 and 3 (Naxos 8. 557738), with Peter Sheppard Skaerved and the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra (now the Deutsche Radio-Philharmonie). Other recordings have been listed among Gramophone 'Editor Choice' in London, Fanfare magazine 'Outstanding CDs of the Year'. Penguin Guide to Compact Discs' multiple Rosettes and Key Recording linstings, and he won the Pizzicato prize in Luxembourg. He was named 'Artist of the Year' by the Australian National Critics Circle in 1994, and won the Sydney Opera Critics 'Best Conductor' award the same year. Acclaimed recent releases include George Rochberg's Symphony No 1 in its premiere recording (Naxos 8.559214); volume 2 of the complete works of Edgard Varese (Naxos 8.557882), including the massive original version of Ameriques, for oratorio Le Paradis perdu, released in 2008. 

Frequently invited to conduct at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, he conducted four world premieres on a single concert at the Jubilee, Fiftieth anniversary Festival in 2007 - new symphonies by the Slovakian composer Roman Berger; Lithuania's leading female composer Onute Narbutaite; and the Polish composers Jerzy Kornowicz and Aleksand'r Lason. In 2006 he led the closing concert at the November 2006 'Pawel Szymanski Festival', also in Warsaw, featuring six of the major works of Poland's leading composer of today. In 2008, a four-DVD set including this complete concert was released worldwide by Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne.                                                                                                                                                                            As a composer, Lyndon-Gee was honoured by the Onassis Foundation Prize in 2001, has won the 'Sounds Australian' award three times, the Adolf Spivakovsky Prize, and the MacDowell Fellowship twice.In 2006, his setting from Dante's Paradiso, 'Frammento del Dante', was premiered in Florence by the Echo-Klassiek prizewinning German ensemble SinerPur; Music fur SaltenInstrumente has had recent performances in several countries (including Vladivostock, in far eastern Russia); and 'Over Litton', after a poem of Edward Storey, was premiered in Wales as a 25th anniversary Presteigne Festival Commission before being taken up widely in New York, Australia and elsewhere. In progress are forthcoming commissions of a set of songs for Lute and Tenor voice, Lieder des Morgensterns' a new work for SingerPur on a text from Milton; a String Quartet; a second string orchestra work for the German conductor Eckard Schloifer, '...und unter den Blattern sass Er, weinend'; a work for 'Harpsichord Unlimited' in New York,Etudes canoniques; and a Symphony respectfully dedicated to the aboriginal heritage of Australia, Symphony of Dreamtime.

Lyndon-Gee studied conducting under Rudolf Schwarz in London, and Franco Ferrara in Rome, where Leonard Bernstein heard him conduct a student concert, subsequently inviting him to study at Tanglewood. Here he later worked also under Maurice Abravanel, Erich Leinsdorf and others. He worked as Bruno Maderna's assistant at La Scala, Milan, later becoming second conductor at the Teatro Regio in Turin, working also with the RAI orchestra in that city. He was co-founder with composer Lorenzo Ferrero of the Ensemble Fase Seconda, who premiered dozens of commissioned new works throughout Italy, Germany, France and at many intrernational festivals. As a composer, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti and Jean Martinon, Britain's great musicologist Arthur Hutchings remains a powerful guiding influence,several decades on.

Hailed by Switzerland's Opernwelt as "...a remarkably beautiful voice capable of many colors and nuances...a singer who is also a natural actress" has appeared in opera houses throughout Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Japan, Israel, South Africa, and the United States including the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Stuttgart Opera, Theatre de Chatelet in Paris, Klagenfurt Stadttheater, Salzburg Festival, Cleveland Opera, Opera Orchestra of New York, New York City Opera, and the Spoleto Arts Festival under notable conductors such as James Levine, Herbert von Karajan and Emmanuelle Villaume and others. She has been heard in recitals and concerts throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, and has recorded with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, Süddeutsche Rundfunk Orchestra, and Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. Her core repertoire includes the great operatic roles of Strauss, Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Puccini, and orchestral works of Mahler, Berlioz, and Wagner. Her acclaimed European debut as Romeo in I Capuletti e i Montecchi came while still a member of the Vienna State Opera's Young Artist Program. Invitations to opera houses in Germany, Austria and Italy soon followed.

A most versatile artist, Ms. Hensrud has performed contemporary, Musical Theater, Jazz, and Classical and Operatic genres to great acclaim. In demand as an interpreter of Kurt Weill and Cabaret, she has performed one-woman shows at the Lucille Lortel Theater, Café Sabarsky, the Players Club in New York City, and the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland. As a proponent of contemporary music, Ms. Hensrud has sung world premieres at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space and the Center for Contemporary Opera in NYC and in Germany and Austria. Ms. Hensrud’s Musical Theater credits include Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul. In 2008 Ms. Hensrud founded Feminine Musique, a Recital Duo dedicated to the music of Women Composers, which has been heard in the United States and throughout Europe. She is also a founding member of the Enigma Trio, specializing in vocal chamber music for Voice, Cello and Piano.

Ms. Hensrud earned her BMus in cello performance and MMus in vocal performance and MA from the University of North Dakota. She continued her post-graduate studies on voice as the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in Stuttgart, Germany, where she received the Artist Diploma in Opera. Additional studies were at Salzburg's Mozarteum, the Franz Liszt Musik Akademie, and the L'ecole Hindemith in Vevey, Switzerland. She has served on the Voice Faculty of Hofstra University as Adjunct Professor of Voice since 2005, is Visiting Associate Professor of Voice at St. Olaf College in MN and is the Vocal Director of the Oyster Bay Summer Music Festival. She has served on the Guest Faculty of the r

Westchester Summer Vocal Institute, S’onge D’éte Summer Music Festival of Quebec, CW Post Summer Music Festival, ArtsBridge Summer ArtSong, and the Music in the Alps Summer Music Festival in Bad Gastein, Austria.
 

Ms. Hensrud has given Master Classes at the National Opera Association, Classical Singer National Convention, the NATS Eastern Region Convention and has served as an adjudicator at the Music Teacher’s National Association National Vocal Competition, NATS NY and Eastern Regional Competitions, Metropolitan Opera District Auditions, and others. Her students have consistently been awarded top prizes in competitions and have gone on to undergraduate and graduate study at Boston Conservatory, The Juilliard School, Mannes College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Hartt School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, Guild Hall (London, England), Rutgers University Opera Institute, Binghamton University, Carnegie Mellon University, Temple University, and Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and are singing in Broadway National Tours and Off Broadway productions.
Ms. Hensrud is a member of AEA, AGMA, NATS, and NOA.

g Summer and Easter Festivals, the Metropolitan Opera, Cleveland Opera, Opera OrchestJames Levine, Herbert Von Karjan,

Soprano, Darla Diltz has performed a variety of repertoire including Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Lucia di Lammermoor and Suor Angelica(Knoxville Opera), Violetta (La Traviata), Pamina and First Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Nella and Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Gertrude (Hansel and Gretel), Mimì and Musetta (La Bohème), the Water (The Little Prince), Countess (La Nozze di Figaro), Fiordiligi (Così), Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Madama Butterfly, Tallulah Carter (The Hotel Casablanca), Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Older Alyce (Glory Denied).                                                                                                                           The New York Times called her a commanding presence, who brought a firm, focused tone and emotional depth to the arias. Tom Cipullo gave her in Chelsea Opera's production of Glory Denied. Opera News called her performance of Tallulah Carter on Albany Records recording of Thomas Pasatieri's The Hotel Casablanca "soaringly sung".

Some of her solo oratorio and concert credits include Carl Orff’s CarminaBurana, Mozart’s Requiem and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Te Deum, the Brahms Requiem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Gorecki's Symphony No 3 and the tone-poem Luonnotar by Jean Sibelius. 

Dr. Diltz is a proud graduate of Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.  She received her Masters from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Doctorate from The University of Kentucky. Currently, Darla lives in New York City, where she maintains a private voice studio. At Adelphi University she teaches voice, vocal pedagogy, jazz history and is the Director of Adelphi Opera Theatre.  She serves on the Board of Directors for the NYC Chapter of NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing), and is a member of Opera America and the National Opera Association.

Ms. Darla Diltz is the Executive Director of Red River Lyric Opera, a popular summer young artist program in Texas. Red River Lyric Opera focuses on the technique and performance of both Opera and Musical Theater repertoire.   www.redriverlyric.com 

Winner of Grand-Prix Maria Callas Competition, Athens 1991, Grand-Prix Mozart Competition 1990, Min-On Competition Tokio, Bellini Competition, Catagnia, Italy 1990. Performed around the world at Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Bastille Opera, Covent Garden, Staatsoper Wein, Bolshoi Theater, Mariinskyi Theater, Deutsche Oper Berlin, New National Opera Tokio, Salzburg Festival, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires.

Professor, University of Music and Performing Arts and Prayner Conservatory of Music, Vienna, Austria

Ms. Victoria Loukianetz is a gradueate of the Kiev National Conservatory. She began her career as a soloist of the Kiev National Opera. In 1993 she made her debut as Queen of Night at the Vienna State Opera, where she advanced to one of the most popular singers and remained with the company until 2000

Dr. Violetta Zabbi, professor and a vocal coach at  Adelphi University, New York and Brooklyn College, New York, USA.

Music Director and Coductor with the Vocal Production NYC, Opera Slope, New York Opera Studio and the Delaware Valley Opera.

Dr. V. Zabbi appears as a pianist and coach with Regina Opera, Hofstra University, DCINY International and Opera Manhattan Repertoire in New York.

Dr. V. Zabbi is a member of AMAO ( American Masters Academy of Music ), a special vocal program in Moscow, Russia and in New York, USA

Dr. V. Zabbi is a graduatae of Odessa State Academy of Music, Ukraine

Donald Schleicher has served as Professor of Conducting and Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Illinois since 1995. He was also on the faculty of the University of Michigan for nine years. Professional positions include eight years as Music Director and Conductor of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and for nine summers, he was Music Director and Principal Opera Conductor for the Pine Mountain Music Festival. In the fall of 2014, he returned to the Pine Mountain Music Festival, this time as its Artistic Director. Schleicher began his career as a high school band director in Williamsville, NY.



Schleicher has conducted the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Guiyang (China) Symphony Orchestra, the Inchon (South Korea) Philharmonic, the Daegu (South Korea) Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Filarmonica de la UNAM of Mexico City, the South Dakota Symphony, and the orchestras of Bridgeport, Tallahassee, and Lansing. He has also appeared as a guest conductor at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit.

He is frequently invited to lead performances or provide conducting master classes at many of the countries major music schools, such as the Oberlin Conservatory, Eastman School of Music, Baylor University, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, Ithaca College, Ohio State University and Schepherd School of Music at Rice University. As an enthusiastic advocate of public school music education, Mr. Scheicher has conducted All-State orchestras, festivals and youth orchestras in nearly every state of the United States. He is also active as a clinician for public school music educators.

Aa a conducting professor, Mr. Schleicher's class is an international draw for talented young conductors. Many of his former conducting students have gone on to hold prestigious positions with organizations such as the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Metropolitan Opera, Richmond Philharmonic, the Philharmonia of Kansas City and the Seatlle Symphony. 

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From New York's Carnegie Hall to Sydney's Opera House, via Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Berlin's Philharmonic Hall, Ronald Zollman's name has become through the years a familiar one for many international music lovers.



Now the Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague, Ronald Zollman was born in Antwerp (Belgium), where he began his musical training at the age of four. He later became the pupil of Igor Markevitch and Nadia Boulanger in Paris.



From its start, his career has expanded rapidly. He appeared as a guest conductor with important orchestras on all continents: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Residentie Orchestra, Orchester des Hessischen Rundfunks, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, and many more. He also was the guest of such major festivals as Edinburgh, Flanders, Warsaw Autumn, Festival Estival in Paris, Gulbenkian in Lisbon, London Proms.



Ronald Zollman not only dedicates himself to the great symphonic works of the traditional repertoire, he is very active in the field of opera and is particularly noted for his commitment to contemporary music. In the theatre, he conducted a large number of performances at the Brussels La Monnaie Opera House (a.o. Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte, La Boheme, Albert Herring and A Rake's Progress), directed the performances of La Traviata at London's English National Opera, led a series The Turn of the Screw with The Scottish Opera. For the BBC he recorded Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg, while his Don Giovanni tor the Banff Summer Festival was considered as the highlight of this major event in Canada. In the USA, he is known for his performances of French romantic operas at Indiana Opera, such as Manon, Cendrillon or Romeo et Juliette.As far as contemporary music is concerned, Ronald Zollman has worked regularly with the London Sinfonietta, and at Pierre Boulez's request, he has been a frequent guest with the Ensemble InterContemporain, in Paris and on tour.



From 1989 till 1993 Ronald Zollman was Musical Director of the National Orchestra of Belgium, a position he then held since 1993 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of UNAM in Mexico City. In September 2002 he took the Music Directorship and Principal Conductorship of the Northern Israel Symphony, Haifa, and in September 2009, he became Director of Orchestral Studies at the Carnegie Mellon School of Music in Pittsburgh as well as the Music Director of their Philharmonic Orchestra.



During the recent years Ronald Zollman added several CDs to his discography: following Mahler's First Symphony with the Orchestre Mondial des Jeunesses Musicales, recorded live in Berlin, there were recordings with the National Orchestra of Catalunya, the Basler Sinfonie Orchester, the Zürcher Kammerorchester, the Northern Sinfonia, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with his own orchestra in Mexico City and with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Active in the world of film music, Ronald Zollman recorded the soundtrack for "Le Maître de Musique" ("The Master of Music"), the award-winning motion picture featuring Jose Van Dam, a nominee for the Best Foreign Picture at the Academy Awards in Hollywood. The musical quality of this particular soundtrack was recognized with the award of a Golden Record.



In May 2007 Ronald Zollman made his debut with the Orchestre de Paris at Salle Pleyel (Paris), conducting them at the occasion of their tribute concert to the memory of Mstislav Rostropovitch. In the summer of 2008 he shared the musical direction of the Orquestra Academica of the Campos do Jordao Festival (Brazil) with Kurt Masur. In April 2010 he had his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York, and in April 2011 he conducted at Washington's Kennedy Center.

Roman Kofman has established himself as one of the most renowned and versatile conductors in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. He was Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Donetsk Philharmonic (Ukraine), the Seoul Symphony Orchestra (South Korea), the Symphony Orchestra of the Philharmonia Pomorska (Poland). Since 1990 he has been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Kiev Chamber Orchestra. From 2003 to 2008 he served as Artistic Director and Princial Conductor of Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and the Principal Conductor of Bonn Opera Theater. Since 2012 Roman Kofman has been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine.

During his long and distinguished career Roman Kofman has repeatedly been invited to conduct the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra), the Bolshoi Opera Theater Symphony Orchestra, Munchen Philharmoniker, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Radio France, the National Symphony Orchestra of Belgium, the Liverpool Royal Philharmonic. He conducted in France, England, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Costa Rica.

Roman Kofman recorded numerous discs. One of the notable recording projects is a complete cycle of fifteen Shostakovich's symphonies with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn for Dabringhaus und Grimm label on SACD. The recording of Symphony no. 7 "Leningrad", was hailed by the Penguin Guide as "an excellent performance and recording in every sense," a "key reccording" of this famous work. For his recording of Franz Liszt's oratorio Christus maestro Kofman was awarded the Echo Klassik 2007 and for his recording of Valentin Silvestrov's 6th Symphony the Dutch magazine Luister gave him its highest accolade.

Roman Kofman is a renowned teacher, writer and composer. He is Professor of Conducting at Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kiev. He wrote the highly acclaimed book Educating Conductors. Psychological Elements, which is used in the educational curriculum at many Ukrainian schools and universities.