Thomas Pasatieri
Composer Thomas Pasatieri composed and wrote the libretto for his first opera, The Trysting Place, while an undergraduate at the Juilliard School. His first staged opera was The Women, a one-act work based on an original story. It premiered at the 1965 Aspen Festival and won the composition contest for that year. Among his 19 operas are La Divina (1966), Padrevia (1967), Black Widow (1972), The Trial of Mary Lincoln (1972), Signor Deluso (1974), Washington Square (1976), Before Breakfast (1980), Three Sisters (1986) and his best-known work, The Seagull (1972), which received its world premiere recording in 2003 (Albany Records). In 2007, Pasatieri made his return to opera with the premieres of two new works. Frau Margot, an opera in three acts, was commissioned by Fort Worth Opera and premiered with Joseph Illick conducting and librettist Frank Corsaro directing. August 2007 saw the premiere of a new two-act comic opera, The Hotel Casablanca, with a libretto by the composer. The Hotel Casablanca was premiered by the San Francisco Opera Center Merola Singers, also under the baton of Joseph Illick, with direction by Richard Kagey. Both operas were well-received by audience members and critics alike. In the words of Georgia Rowe (Contra Costa Times), "The Hotel Casablanca is one of those rarer-than-hen’s-teeth works: contemporary, well-crafted, richly musical and riotously funny…" And Frau Margot, replete with "a score of a voluptuous splendor that suggests Klimt’s gilded paintings set to music… has all the markings of a masterpiece" (Wes Blomster, operatoday.com). In addition to opera, Pasatieri has composed hundreds of songs, which have been performed and recorded by such artists as Janet Baker, Jane Eaglen, Sheri Greenawald, Thomas Hampson, Evelyn Lear, Catherine Malfitano, Ashley Putnam, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Stewart and Shirley Verrett. These works include Heloïse and Abelard (1971), Rites of Passage (1974), Three Poems of James Agee (1974), Canciones del barrio (1983), Three Sonnets from the Portuguese (1984), Sieben Lehmannlieder (Seven Lehmann Songs to texts by Lotte Lehmann) (1988), Three Poems of Oscar Wilde (1998) and the orchestral song cycle, with chorus, Letter to Warsaw (2003).

Walt Whitman

Talise Trevigne
Called the "luminous new voice of classical music," Talise Trevigne is praised for her portrayals of many leading ladies including Violetta, Mimì, Juliette, Gilda, Lucia and Manon. She garnered Britain's Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for her portrayal of Violetta in Graham Vick's La traviata with Birmingham Opera. Recent company debuts include Gilda with Tulsa Opera and her first Micaëla with San Diego Opera. In 2012, she returned to Bel Canto at Caramoor to sing the pants role of Jemmy in Rossini's Guillaume Tell. An energetic and dedicated champion of new music, she received rave reviews when she created the role of Pip in the world premiere of Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick with The Dallas Opera. She recently reprised this role with San Diego Opera and sings Pip with San Francisco Opera (fall 2012) and Washington National Opera (spring 2014). She performed in the world premiere of Heggie's song cycle Pieces of 9/11 — Memories from Houston for Houston Grand Opera.

Kelly Horsted
Kelly Horsted enjoys an active career as a vocal coach and accompanist. Horsted has been a music director for the Composers and the Voice series at American Opera Projects (AOP) for three seasons. Other projects with AOP have included Herschel Garfein's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead directed by Mark Morris, Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness and Paula Kimper's Patience and Sarah for the Lincoln Center Festival. He has also collaborated with Chelsea Opera, Center for Contemporary Opera, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Wintergreen Festival, New Jersey Opera Theater, Friends and Enemies of New Music, Five Words in a Line and the graduate musical theater writing program at the Tisch School. He has taught at Mannes College of Music, Hartt School of Music, Hunter College, Intermezzo and OperaWorks. His B.M. and M.M. are from the Eastman School of Music. http://www.kellyhorsted.com