Heather Buck, soprano (Adina)
In 2008-2009, Heather Buck joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera. She was also heard at Florentine Opera in Milwaukee singing The Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Annchen in Der Freischütz with Opera Boston and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance with Indianapolis Opera. On the concert stage she performed songs by Thomas Larcher and George Crumb for the American Composers’ Forum. Recent highlights include her English National Opera debut singing The Queen of the Night, her return to Opera Birmingham as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and to Arizona Opera as Queen of the Night, and her first Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Connecticut Opera. Ms. Buck made her New York City Opera debut creating the title role in Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for which New York City Opera presented her with the Kolozsvar Award, recognizing artists who excel at new and unusual repertory. Ms. Buck holds a Master of Music degree from Yale.

Emily Ezzie, soprano (Giannetta)
Soprano Emily Ezzie graduated from Boston University having received the Ellalou Dimmock Award. Since then, she has been steadily distinguishing herself as a young artist to watch, most recently appearing with the 2009 Natchez Music Festival where she added the Blackburn/KilleleaAward to her list of accolades. Among her roles, are the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Mimì in La bohème, and Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro with Pittsburgh Opera. She has performed as a Young Artist with Opera North, The Opera and Theatre Music Festival of Lucca, Italy, and Sarasota Opera where she received the Stuart R. Silver Scholarship. In 2008, she was the Grand Prize winner in the Long Leaf Opera Vocal Competition and a finalist in the National Opera Association Vocal Competition. In 2009-2010, Ms. Ezzie is performing with Opera Southwest and the Washington Vocal Arts Ensemble.

Bryan Griffin, tenor (Nemorino)
Bryan Griffin made his debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago on opening night of the 2006-2007 season as Edmondo in Olivier Tambosi’s new production of Manon Lescaut. Other roles at Lyric, where he was a member of the prestigious Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for American Artists, include Tamino in The Magic Flute, Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette and the Innkeeper in Der Rosenkavalier. In 2007 he made his European debut on opening night at the Glyndebourne Festival in Great Britain., portraying Malcolm in Richard Jones’s new production of Macbeth, and he returned to Chicago as Fenton in Falstaff. Also that season he sang his first Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra in Alabama. Mr. Griffin earned his undergraduate degree at the Juilliard School of Music at Lincoln Center.

Timothy Mix, baritone (Belcore)
Recipient of a 2008 Richard Tucker Foundation Career grant. He received critical acclaim for his pivotal role as Edward Gaines in the New York premiere of Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison’s Margaret Garner in a new production by Tazewell Thompson for which the American baritone received New York City Opera’s 2008 Christopher Keene Award. His 2008-2009 season included notable debuts at Dallas Opera as the Duke of Nottingham in Roberto Devereaux and at Michigan Opera Theater as Edward Gaines in Margaret Garner. He was also seen as Marcello in La bohème at both Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Palm Beach Opera, Ford in Falstaff at New York City Opera, and Clayton McAllister in the Atlanta Opera production of Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree. His concert performances included Fauré’s Requiem with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Beethoven’s Mass in C and Dvorak’s Te Deum with Voices of Ascension.

Marco Nistico, baritone (Dulcamara)
Italian baritone Marco Nisticò’s career highlights include Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Pallante in Agrippina, Prudenzio in Il viaggio a Reims, Schaunard in La bohème, and Dancaïro in Carmen, all with New York City Opera. In 2008 he made his Sarasota Opera debut as Francesco Foscari in I due Foscari and returned to sing Figaro in The Barber of Seville. In Europe he has appeared as Figaro in The Barber of Seville with the Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland, a role he also performed in Bologna, Amsterdam and on tour in the Netherlands, Taddeo in L’italiana in Algieri with Asociazione Lirica Concertistica Italiana in Milan, Ford in Falstaff with the William Walton Foundation in Ischia, and Starveling in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Mr Nisticò has also performed with the Florida Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, European Union Opera and Théatre des Champs-Elysées.

Jeffrey Marc Buchman, stage director
Jeffrey Marc Buchman brings his background as a singing actor to his work as a stage director. Recently he directed the Nicaraguan premiere of Madama Butterfly for the National Theater in Managua, Nicaragua. He returned to direct La bohème in 2009, and will direct an outdoor arena production of Aida in 2012. This season he directed Hansel and Gretel for Sarasota Opera and served as their Resident Stage Director for the opera’s Apprentice Artist Program, where he coached and staged singers in opera scenes for performances on the company's main stage. For Opera Naples he staged Il trovatore, and will direct Tosca with Opera Mobile in 2011. He has served as assistant director for Tulsa Opera's production of Porgy and Bess under director Johnathan Pape. His work with Tulsa Opera has also included directing productions for their Young Artist Studio, including The Pirates of Penzance and, drawing on his command of the Spanish language and his study of Spanish culture, the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda. Since 2005, Mr. Buchman has served as stage director and coach for the Opera Department of the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he has created productions of The Magic Flute, Amelia Goes to the Ball, La Divina, Die Fledermaus and Così fan tutte.

Thomas Conlin, conductor
Thomas Conlin is a regular guest conductor with symphony orchestras, ballet companies and opera companies on five continents, most recently in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey and throughout the United States. Many of Conlin’s programs feature works by Barber, Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin and other fellow Americans, and he is a champion of music of our time, but his international career includes conducting Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia, Beethoven and Brahms in Germany, Mozart and Mahler in Austria, Debussy and Ravel in France, Verdi and Puccini in Italy, Grieg in Norway and Sibelius in Finland. In 2006 he led the Eastern European premiere of Bernstein’s West Side Story at the National Opera of Croatia, in Zagreb.

Maestro Conlin’s recording of George Crumb’s Star-Child, on which he conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. His music video, Symphonic Wonderworks, won the Gold Award (1st Prize) at the 1992 Houston International Film Festival and was nominated for a Telly Award. His CD of Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape was nominated for an Indie Award as Best Orchestral Recording of 2002, and his latest CD on the Bridge label, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River, was released in 2004 to great acclaim. The first in a series of recordings of works by the Brazilian composer Camargo Guarnieri was released on the Naxos label last year. Volume II has been released this month (May 2010), and a third CD is scheduled for early in 2011.

Conlin has collaborated in opera and concert with renowned vocalists Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne, Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, Roberta Peters, Giorgio Tozzi and Frederica von Stade, in ballet with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Edward Villella and Violette Verdi, and with instrumentalists Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, James Galway, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern. For Toledo Opera he has conducted recent productions of Romeo and Juliet, Don Pasquale, The Turn of the Screw, La traviata, Sweeney Todd, Don Giovanni, La bohème, The Crucible, The Barber of Seville, Faust, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Il trovatore, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Marriage of Figaro, Tosca, Così fan tutte, Rigoletto, Candide, Salome, Falstaff and Lucretia, and nine of TO’s Opera Galas: Three Tenors! – the Next Generation, A Night in Old Vienna, The Greatest Wagner Concert Ever!, Opera Goes to the Movies, From Russia with Love, Richard Strauss: the Last Great Romantic, From Broadway to the Met, Viva Verdi! and April in Paris.