 Tim Ribchester is active in Philadelphia as conductor, pianist, coach, broadcaster and lecturer, currently serving on the faculties of the Academy of Vocal Arts (Il tabarro, Des contes d'Hoffmann, Don Giovanni, L'elisir d'amore, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Quichotte, Eugene Onegin, Un ballo in maschera), Russian Opera Workshop at AVA (The Queen of Spades, Francesca da Rimini), the Bryn Mawr Conservatory, and as a Music Director for Delaware Valley Opera Company (La Cenerentola, Don Giovanni, Hansel and Gretel, Le nozze di Figaro). Guest music director engagements include Don Giovanni for Opera Libera and Apple Blossoms for Concert Operetta Theater. A music historian and specialist in the Nuevo Tango music of Astor Piazzolla, he is known for his support of Philadelphia composers and has given many premieres in the area as conductor and pianist, including the award-winning commercial release recording and New York premiere of Melissa Dunphy's song cycle Tesla's Pigeon.
Trained in Oxford, London, Paris and Buenos Aires, Tim has appeared in duo with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia principal singers, and with New York's foremost tango musicians at the Bryant Park Fall Festival, Five Boroughs Music Festival, and Usdan Center. He participated in the 2012 Cleveland Art Song Festival, and assisted with music preparation for Opera Philadelphia (Romeo et Juliette), Center City Opera Theater (Dido and Aeneas, L'elisir d'amore), and Opera at Florham, NJ (L'elisir d'amore), as well as debuting with Baltimore Concert Opera as pianist for Carmen this season. He has served as a panel judge for the New Jersey State Opera, Philadelphia Lieder Society, and the American Composers Forum, Philadelphia chapter, is the assistant video director for the Philadelphia Orchestra, and was the founding music director of the Eakins Vocal Consort, a select chamber choir, from 2006-2009.
UPenn Prof. Ilya Vinitsky will give a public lecture on Pushkin's "The Gypsies" and the story of Rachmaninoff's opera "Aleko" - Russian Opera Workshop Artists will sing a Rachmaninoff Songs recital | June 25, 2012 - 7:30 PM - AVA Warden Theater. (Photo © 2011 L. C.
Kelley)
 In 2013, Brad Cawyer returns for his third season with Russian Opera Workshop, leading the program's Russian language course.
Brad Everett Cawyer is emerging as a passionate and solid conductor following extensive training in Russia. Praised for the deep-founded musicianship that is evident in his clear and engaging style, his affable approach to working with orchestras inspires an atmosphere uplifting to
performers and audience alike.
A native of Dallas and a graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Cawyer conducts opera and symphonic orchestra, also premiering new works for ensemble and for chamber orchestra and
collaborating with composers of many cultures. In 2010, he created the Contemporary East & West International Music Festival (St. Petersburg) to
foster transnational collaboration in that multicultural city. His debut at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic led to an invitation to be the conductor for the
Saint Petersburg-based new music ensemble SOUNDWAYS.
In the 2011-12 season, Cawyer was assistant conductor for Houston Symphony's production of Wozzeck and also worked with Orchestra of New
Spain in a staged production of Duròn's Las nuevas armas de amor.
Additionally, he has conducted the St. Petersburg Philharmonic's Academic Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Conservatory Opera, and Kapubandi of Helskinki's
Sibelius Academy. Cawyer holds diplomas from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where his teacher was Alexander Alexeev, and has studied with David Hayes, Jorma Panula, JoAnn Falletta, Markus Lehtinen, Kenneth Kiesler, and Gennady
Rozhdestvensky.
In July, Cawyer will appear in the Discovery Concert Series for the Oregon Bach Festival, and he has been selected to participate in the 6th International
Prokofiev Competition in Conducting, to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia in October 2013.
Left to right: Ghenady Meirson, Benita Valente and Mikael Eliasen
 I am very excited that my Curtis Institute of Music colleague, opera and voice coach, Don St. Pierre will help us on preparation of Eugene Onegin during June 2011. I can see many opera singers smiling. - Ghena
 Mr. Stone will offer a master class for participating opera singers in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.
William Stone has sung extensively in the major opera houses of Europe and especially in Italy, having twice opened the May Festival in Florenceas Wozzeck and as Orestes, in Gluck'sIphigénie en Tauride under Riccardo Muti. His creation of the role of Adam for the Lyric Opera of Chicago's world premiere of Penderecki's Paradise Lost, was followed by his debut at La Scala in its European premiere and a performance at the Vaticanfor Pope John Paul II. With Sir Georg Solti, he toured with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in the role of the Count in Le nozze di Figaro.
His North American opera engagements include the Metropolitan Opera (Moses und Aron, Wozzeck, La traviata, Sly, Die Fledermaus, Romeo et Juliette, Lucia, Madama Butterfly), and title roles for over a decade at the New York City Opera, notably as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro in a Live from Lincoln Center telecast and the title role in new productions of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, and Busoni's Doktor Faust.
As a concert artist, Stone has appeared with every major orchestra in the country, including the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur and the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Seiji Ozawa conducting the premieres of Takemitsu's My Way of Life, and Kirchner's Of Things Exactly as They Are. His long relationship with Robert Shaw resulted in acclaimed performances of the monumental choral works and over a dozen recordings, including the two Grammy Award recordings of Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, and Walton's, Belshazaar's Feast, and an Historic Live Performance Edition of Ein Deutches Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra . Other recordings include The Songs and Arias of Robert Ward, and DVDs of Carnegie Hall's Performance Series of Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, and Verdi's Falstaff with Jose van Dam.
Equally at home on the recital stage, Stone considers his many performances of Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch with Benita Valente and David Golub among the most memorable. In addition to his performing career, Mr. Stone is Professor Emeritus of Voice and Opera at Temple University, and currently is teaching on the Voice Faculty at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia.
 Mr. Hagen will give a lecture on Tchaikovsky's last opera "Iolanta." This free public event is part of Russian Romances concert on July 25, 2011 at the Helen Warden Corning Theater in Philadelphia. Follow this site for future listings of all free public events.
Full Biography
Daron Hagen (pronounced hɑgən/, us dict: hah-guhn, born November 4, 1961 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) taught himself to read music at the age of 11, began piano lessons at the age of 12, completed his first symphony at 14, conducted his first orchestral première at 16, and at 19 became the youngest composer since Samuel Barber to have a work premièred by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Commissions during his early twenties from the New York Philharmonic and the Kings Singers launched his career before the first of his seven major operas, Shining Brow (1992), garnered international critical and audience acclaim and established him as one of America 's most successful and respected opera composers.
Hagen's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The New York Philharmonic, The National Symphony, The Milwaukee Symphony, The Albany Symphony, The Seattle Symphony, and The Buffalo Philharmonic. Most recently, Hagen has written concertos for Joel Fan, Gary Graffman, Jeffrey Khaner, Yumi Kurosawa, Michael Ludwig, Sara Sant'Ambrogio, the Amelia Piano Trio, Jaime Laredo, and Sharon Robinson, among others.
He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation (twice), the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, the Barlow Endowment Prize, Opera America, the ASCAP-Nissim Prize, and the Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize. In 2010, his Suite for Piano was a commissioned work for the Van Cliburn piano competition, resulting in hundreds of performances of the piece worldwide.
Hagen has been a Featured Composer atfestivals including Tanglewood, Wintergreen, and Aspen and currently serves as Artistic Director for the Seasons Music Festival. He has served as Composer-in-residence with the Long Beach Symphony and the Denver Chamber Orchestra. As Artistic andExecutive Director of the Perpetuum Mobile Concerts in New York and Philadelphia during the eighties, he presentedpremieres of over one hundred American composers' works.
Hagen's music enjoys more than a hundred performances a year. All of his operas, Amelia, Shining Brow, Bandanna, Vera of Las Vegas, New York Stories, The Antient Concert receive regular staged and concert revivals internationally—some under Hagen's stage direction or under his baton. His songs and song cycles are too frequently performed totrack.
Hagen's works have been recorded on overtwo dozen CDs. In 2009, Naxos released Shining Brow (Buffalo Philharmonic / Falletta) and the complete Hagen Piano Trios (Finisterra Trio). Bandanna wasreleased on Albany under his baton in 2007; Vera of Las Vegas on the CRI label. Nearly all of Hagen's vocal music is recorded and available commercially. Hagen's music is published by E.C. Schirmer, Carl Fischer, and Burning Sled.
Hagen is a trustee of the Douglas Moore Fund for American Opera, former president of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation, and a Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo. He serves frequently as an admissions and grants panelist for numerous national organizations including Opera America, the Copland House, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among others.
Hagen is a graduate of Curtis and Juilliard. He served two years on the musical studies faculty of the CurtisInstitute of Music; nine years on the composition faculty of Bard College; as a Visiting Professor at the City College of New York; and as a Lecturer in Music at New York University. He has served twice as Composer-in-Residence for the Princeton University Atelier; as Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Conservatory of Music of the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, as Franz Lehar Composer-in-Residence at the University of Pittsburgh; as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Sigma-Chi-William P. Huffman Composer-in-Residence at Miami University; and for a year as Artist-in-Residence at Baylor University.
Currently fulfilling commissions for the Sarasota Opera, the Seattle Symphony, and Lyric Fest of Philadelphia, among others, Hagen lives in New York City with his wife Gilda and his son Atticus.
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