2020 Festival

Isabel Bayrakdarian

It’s not every prima donna who can boast a degree in biomedical engineering, but then, Isabel Bayrakdarian isn’t your average prima donna. In a career still in its second decade, an eagerly anticipated visitor to opera houses and concert halls the world over, she’s become as celebrated for her beauty, presence, and style as for a strikingly multihued voice that’s wholly in sync with the rest of her. A winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions—the same year she graduated from the University of Toronto cum laude with a Biomedical Engineering Degree—Ms. Bayrakdarian thereafter found her career taking rapid wing. She scored a notable success in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s world premiere production of William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge; the following year, she walked away from Plácido Domingo’s prestigious Operalia competition with first prize. More debuts followed, including her San Francisco Opera debut, as Valencienne in The Merry Widow, and her Metropolitan Opera debut, in the New York premiere of Bolcom’s opera; a season later, she won plaudits as Teresa in the Met premiere of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini.

Matthew Valverde

Matthew Valverde, tenor, is a candidate for the degree of Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music, where he recently completed his Master of Music degree as a student of Kathryn Cowdrick. An avid concert soloist, Matthew has performed in Rochester and Ft. Worth including performances of Bach’s Magnificat and Johannes-Passion, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Mozart’s Requiem, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, and Britten’s War Requiem and is featured on the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s recording of Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music under Christopher Seaman for Harmonia Mundi.

Dr. Andre Garcia-Nuthmann

Dr. Andre Garcia-Nuthmann, has been the Director of Choral and Vocal music at New Mexico Highlands University since 1990. At Highlands, he directs two choirs and a Musical Theater ensemble. He also has been the choir director at Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe for 12 years. In 2007, his chamber choir was selected as Choir in Residence for the Classical Music Festival held annually in Eisenstadt, Austria. There, they performed in both the Esterhazy Chapel and in the famous Haydnsaal. Andre has an extensive choral experience starting with the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where he sang and studied with Dr. Kurt Prestell in the Liedertafel Choir. Dr. Prestell was the leading authority for the music of Karl Orff and Igor Stravinsky. Andre also worked and performed with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale under the leadership of Larry Bandfield and later with Dr. Dennis Shrock. At Highlands, Andre was able to collaborate with the Santa Fe Symphony in several concerts held in Las Vegas, New Mexico. During those concerts, Andre would often conduct the Symphony with his Concert Choir. Some of those programs included Handel’s Messiah and several of Haydn’s Masses.

Kristin Ditlow

Kristin Ditlow, American pianist, harpsichordist, vocal coach and conductor, is enjoying a career in opera and recital in the United States and abroad. She is an alumna of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Westminster Choir College, Tanglewood Music Center, and Merola Opera Program. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Accompanying and Chamber Music from the Eastman School of Music, where she was a student of Dr. Jean Barr.  Her conducting has been praised as “fine and polished” and featured an “exciting overture,” (Charles Jernigan, when she led Opera Southwest’s Norma). Philadelphia music critic Michael Caruso remarked that her piano performance had “an exquisite sensitivity and exhilarating thrusts of energy,” and the Bethlehem Morning Call wrote about her performance of Brahms as having “enormous passion, fine precision, and great musicality.”

Dr. Juan Hernández

Dr. Juan Hernández currently serves as Director of Choral Activities at Odessa College, where he conducts the A Cappella Choir and the Vocal Ensemble, and teaches Music Appreciation. He also serves as Music Director at Westminster Presbyterian Church of Odessa. Prior to his appointment at Odessa College, Dr. Hernández served as Director of Choral Activities at the University of New Mexico, where he taught Conducting, Seminar in Choral Literature, and conducted the Concert Choir and University Chorus. Furthermore, he was Music Director at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church of Albuquerque, and directed the Madrigal Singers of Albuquerque.

As Associate Instructor at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Dr. Hernández served as Assistant to the Chorus Master in several productions of the IU Opera & Ballet Theater, including Verdi’s “La Traviata”, Indiana University’s premier of Glass’ “Akhnaten”, and the world premiere of Rands’ “Vincent”. He also assisted and conducted the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble (now NOTUS), the University Singers, the Symphony Choir, and the All-Campus Chorus.

Dr. Hernández has over fifteen years of conducting experience, and has performed a vast array of music genres, including popular and folk music of Latin America arranged for choir by himself and others, and major choral-orchestral works of different eras. In his home country, Colombia, he founded several choral ensembles, and participated with Bocca Chiusa Grupo Vocal in the 3rd version of the Choir Games, winning silver and bronze medals in the categories Popular Vocal Music and Folklore A Cappella, respectively. Dr. Hernández conducted the middle-school choir at Colegio Hacienda los Alcaparros in Bogotá, and taught music theory, piano, and conducted the adult, children’s, and parents’ choruses from the Fundación Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Colombia.

Dr. Hernández holds Doctor of Music and Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, as well as Bachelor of Music from Los Andes University in Choral Conducting. His conducting professors and mentors include Robert Porco, William Jon Gray, Dominick DiOrio, Walter Huff, Richard Tang Yuk, Betsy Burleigh, Carmen-Helena Téllez, Manuel Cubides Greiffeinstein, and Werner Pfaff.