 In August 2011, Baritone Efrain Solis reprised the title role of Eugene Onegin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena, CA.
 Curtis Institute of Music Chair in Vocal Studies; Artistic Director of the Curtis Opera Theatre, Opera and Voice Coach
Danish-born coach and accompanist Mikael Eliasen received his early training in Copenhagen, Montreal, and Vienna. He has collaborated with numerous singers in recital worldwide, including Robert Merrill, Tom Krause, John Shirley-Quirk, Elly Ameling, Edith Mathis, Florence Quivar, Mira Zakai, Sarah Walker, Joan Patenaude-Yarnell, and Curtis alumni Theodor Uppman, Michael Schade, and Rinat Shaham. He has recorded for Albany Records, CBC, Hilversum Radio, Polish State Radio, Kol Israel, Irish Radio and Television, London Records, MHS, and Supraphon. Mr. Eliasen has given master classes at Aix-en-Provence, the Shanghai Conservatory, Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moscow), Jerusalem Music Center, and National Opera of Prague. He has a long association with the young-artist programs at the Royal Danish Opera and the Opera Studio of Amsterdam. In the United States, he works regularly at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Eliasen was music director of the San Francisco Opera Center from 1994 to 1996 and artistic director of the European Center for Opera and Vocal Art in Belgium from 1984 to 1994. For twenty years he has taught at Chautauqua's Voice Program during the summers. Mr. Eliasen joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1986 and became the head of the department in 1988.  Danielle Orlando serves as Master Coach on the music faculty of The Academy of Vocal Arts and is currently the Principal Opera Coach at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Ms. Orlando collaborated for many years with renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti as accompanist, judge, and artistic coordinator for all of the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competitions. She also spent nine seasons working with Gian Carlo Menotti for the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy as the artistic coordinator and coach for the operas, in addition to editing several of his compositions and performing recitals with the festival. Ms. Orlando is associated with many opera companies, festivals, and young artist programs, including The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Washington National Opera (where she has collaborated with Placido Domingo), Michigan Opera Theater, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera, Portland Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Festival dei Due Mondi in Charleston, South Carolina, American Institute of Music Studies in Graz, Austria, European Center for Vocal Arts in Belgium, the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera, Curso Intensivo de Perfeccionamiento de Opera in Mexico, Opera New Jersey, and Arizona Opera. Ms. Orlando has been spending her summers in Europe, working for Oberlin in Italy in Arezzo and for the Florence Voice Seminar in Florence, Italy. In addition, she is on the music staff of the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland where she performs and works with international singers, conductors, and directors. She continues to judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions across the United States. Ms. Orlando began her piano studies at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia and continued at the Eastman School of Music in New York. She earned a Master of Music in Piano Performance (summa cum lauda) at Temple University where she has been named to The Gallery of Success. She regularly accompanies internationally recognized artists and has performed on Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Live by Request on A&E, the Rosie O’Donnell Show and Larry King Live accompanying celebrities Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, and Michael Bolton. Ms. Orlando accompanied tenor Marcello Giordani in recital at the Supreme Court of the United States.  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 sons Atticus and Seamus. Scene from Tchaikovsky Iolanta - Bertrand, Almeric and Marta Iolanta's arioso from Tchaikovsky Iolanta
Mixed clips from Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" - King Rene, Ibn-Hakia, Vaudemaunt and Robert Iolanta's Arioso from Tchaikovsky's Iolanta Ibn-Hakia aria from Tchaikovsky's Iolanta
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