Andrew Sauavageau, baritone. After graduation from the UO Andrew Sauavageau received a Masters from the Peabody School of Music. He also attended Tanglewood Music Festival. Operatic appearances include St. Petersburg Opera, Bel Cantanti (Washington DC),Baltimore Vocal Arts, and Peabody Mainstage Opera. He recently made his debut with New York City Opera in Oliver Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are.
Erica Brookhyser, mezzo-soprano. Brookhyser is currently a soloist at the Staatstheater Darmstadt in Germany. After graduation from the University of Oregon she received a Masters in Music at New England Conservatory. She was a National Semi-Finalist in the 2004 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Additional training included Tanglewood, Utah Opera Studio Artist Program 2007-2008, Los Angeles Opera Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program 2008-2010. In addition to Darmstadt, other opera appearances include Central City Opera, Los Angeles Opera,Utah Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera. Concert soloist appearances include Boston Symphony Orchestra (James Levine, conductor) and L.A. Opera Orchestra (Placido Domingo, conductor.)
Nora Ryan. After graduation from the UO Nora had scholarships at the Tallis Scholars Summer School, Dartington Internation Summer School, and the University of York where she is completing a Masters in Performance Research. Based in New York, her career now embraces singing, arranging, improvisational theater and film. Appearances include performances with Hands Down, Ergodos Voices, Bottle Improvisation Collective, Cerddorion, Harmonium. Ryan is one half of Tryst – a voice and electronics performance duo. She has recently been selected for the 2011 NYFA Artist as Entrepreneur program.
Hallie Silverston, soprano. She is currently a Festival Artist with the Utah Festival Opera. After graduation from the UO, she received a Masters from the Eastman School of Music. Appearances include Indianapolis Opera, YardArts Opera, the NYC Family Opera Initiative, the Geva Theatre Center, Mercury Opera Rochester, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Bay View Symphony and the Kurt Weill Foundation at Lincoln Center. Based in New York and equally at home with opera and musical theater, she will appear in the off-Broadway run of One For My Baby.
Genaro Méndez, tenor. Méndez is an Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Kansas. With an under-graduate degree from the University of Nevada, studies at University of Illinois, he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Oregon. Operatic performances include appearances at Wichita Grand Opera, Heartland Opera Theatre, Springfield Regional Opera, Missouri, Nevada Opera, Eugene Opera, Colorado Opera Troupe, and Illinois Opera Theater. Oratorio and chamber appearances with University of Kansas, Voices of Omaha, Bach Aria Soloists, Reno Chamber Orchestra and the Reno Philharmonic. He is the founding director of FIMEL, a festival dedicated to Spanish and Latin American Art Music. He returned to the UO some years ago to give a recital with pianist Robert Koening.
Jennifer Russell, mezzo-soprano. A Visiting Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University, Russell completed her Ph.D. in Music Theory with voice as a secondary area of study at the UO. She also has a B.M. in Piano Pedagogy. She has taught at the UO, Utah State University Youth Conservatory, and is the choral conductor at the Oregon Festival of American Music. Recent performances include the role of the speaker in Pierrot lunaire with the Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Lily in The Secret Garden, and solo and chamber recitals in the western United States. She has a special interest in contemporary works.
Megan Sand, mezzo-soprano. Voice Faculty at Oregon State University since 2007. After her undergraduate work at OSU, she received a Masters in Vocal Performance at the UO. Megan also teaches vocal pedagogy and Italian and Latin lyric diction. Appearances include Corvallis Repertory Singers, Friends of OSU Opera (formerly Opera Theater Corvallis), the Corvallis/OSU Symphony, Music a la Carte Concert Series, Oregon Mozart Players, UO Opera Ensemble, and Astoria Music Festival. A former two-time winner of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition, she now is now a member and adjudicator for NATS.
Juliet Strong. After graduation from the UO Strong received acting training at the California Shakespeare School of Theatre and Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. She has appeared with Oregon Festival of American Music, California Shakespeare Theatre, Shotgun Players, A Traveling Jewish Theatre, and at the Pear Avenue Theatre and the Southside Theatre at Ft. Mason Center. She now performs regularly in San Francisco and New York.
Joanne McDade, soprano. Joanne is on the faculty of Hendricks College. She is active as a singer, pianist and choral conductor and appears often as a soprano soloist and in recital. She earned the Master’s of Music degree in Vocal Performance at the University of Oregon, where she was awarded a Graduate Teaching Fellowship in Studio Voice and Women’s Chorus, and was on the staff of the Oregon Bach Festival. Ms McDade previously earned the Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Piano Performance from California State University, Sacramento. She has taught at Sierra College, Sacramento City College, Umpqua Community College, and the St. Francis Academy for Young Women.
Send all student info to tm@tommanoff.com