Sherrill Milnes
Sherrill Milnes is universally acclaimed as the foremost operatic baritone of his generation. With his powerful voice, commanding stage presence and rugged handsomeness, he received the kind of adulation that is usually reserved for tenors. He sang over 650 performances at the Met, where he was honored with sixteen new productions, seven opening nights, and ten national telecasts. As a leading artist in all of the world’s great opera houses, Mr. Milnes performed and recorded with the likes of Domingo, Pavarotti, Sutherland, Sills, Horne, Price, and Tebaldi. He is the winner of three Grammy Awards, and the most recorded American singer of his time. In 2008 he received the Opera News Award for Distinguished Achievement.
Maria Zouves
Maria Zouves is an educator, director, producer and writer. She is President of the Sherrill Milnes VOICE Programs − VOICExperience Foundation and the Savannah VOICE Festival – which she co-founded with her husband, Sherrill Milnes, to provide training for aspiring young artists and foster new audiences for the vocal arts. The Greek-American soprano has sung leading roles in the regional U.S., made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1997, and has recorded under the VAI label. While Maria directs most of the concerts in the VOICE Programs and co-directed the new SVF opera commission, Ching’s Alice Ryley: A Savannah Ghost Story, she most recently directed Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in Prague, where the work first premiered and co-directed Le nozze de Figaro with Sherrill Milnes in Prague and Salzburg with Prague Summer Nights. She was recently seen in the title role of the premiere of Ching’s Anna Hunter: The Spirit of Savannah.
Ms. Zouves has directed, taught, and produced events all around the world, having worked with the International Vocal Arts Institute (IVAI) in Montreal and Puerto Rico, the International Institute of Vocal Arts (IIVA) in Chiari, Italy, and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland. From 2007 to 2011, she served as Vice President and Associate General Director of Opera Tampa, the resident opera company of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts. She has taught workshops at Southern Illinois University, Drake University and served as interim opera director at Northwestern University. A sought after clinician, particularly in career development, she has also aided young singers as a career liaison through her former feature, “A Conversation with…” in Classical Singer magazine.
Ms. Zouves has sung leading roles with the Baltimore Opera, Florentine Opera, Memphis Opera, New Jersey State Opera, Orlando Opera, and the Pittsburgh Opera. The Stuttgarter Zeitung praised her “beautiful, lyric voice” and “a not to be surpassed ‘piano’ in the high register.” Opera News has described her voice as “creamy.” This Greek-American soprano shows great versatility in opera, on concert stages, and in crossover repertoire, with a specialty in classical and popular Greek music.
Liz Baldwin
American soprano Elizabeth Baldwin has been praised as being “ferociously talented” by the San Francisco Examiner and “mesmerizingly vulnerable” by the New York Times.
The 2024-25 season engagements include a debut with the Macbeth Concert Series on Chebeague Island in Maine performing the role of Micaëla in Peter Brook’s La tragédie de Carmen, a Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra return performing various selections in Forsyth Park for the “Phil the Park” concert, a return to Savannah Voice Festival to perform an all-holiday concert, a debut with the Missoula Symphony Orchestra singing Verdi’s Requiem, among others.
Recent engagements include: Nella in Gianni Schicchi and Michael Ching’s Buoso’s Ghost with Utah Festival Opera; the title role of Tosca with Anchorage Opera; Magda in The Consul with Angels Vocal Art Summer Opera Festival in L.A.; Marguerite in Faust with Savannah VOICE Festival; Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer with Miami Music Festival’s Wagner Institute; the title role of Norma with Municipal de Santiago Opera Nacional de Chile; Eva Crowley in Jack Perla’s An American Dream with Anchorage Opera; Sieglinde in Die Walküre with Miami Music Festival’s Wagner Institute; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with both Opera Company of Middlebury and NYC’s Loft Opera. Other highlights include: Tatiana in Eugene Onegin with Chautauqua Opera; the title role of Tosca with Opera San Jose, Kentucky Opera, Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra, Houston’s Opera in the Heights and Boston Youth Symphony; the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos with Opera Theater of Pittsburgh; the title role of Suor Angelica with Opera Project Columbus; Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera with Boston Youth Symphony; Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes with Chautauqua Opera and San Francisco Symphony.
On the concert stage, Ms. Baldwin has been heard recently with Vista Philharmonic Orchestra at the Groton Hill Music Center performing Dvorak’s Te Deum and Boyer’s On Music’s Wings, as well as performing in a recital with Howard Watkins at the Savannah VOICE Festival. Other notable works include: Verdi’s Requiem with Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra, American Festival Chorus and Orchestra, and San Diego Symphony; Handel’s Messiah with Erie Philharmonic Orchestra; Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder with Denver Philharmonic Orchestra; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Akron Symphony, Sarasota Symphony Orchestra, Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra and Gulf Coast Symphony. She made her debut with Dallas Opera in their concert series Verdi & Co., gave a NATS Texoma Conference Recital and Masterclass at Texas A&M University, performed an all Wagner concert with the Wagner Society of Washington D. C., and participated in an opera gala concert with Toledo Opera. An active recitalist with a deep passion for lieder, Ms. Baldwin’s most recent collaborations include recitals with Ravinia Music Festival and Tanglewood Music Festival.
Ms. Baldwin is the 2024 Gold Medal and two-time Sherrill Milnes Opera Award winner at the American Traditions Voice Competition. She was also a National Semi-Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; Grand Prize winner in the Sullivan Foundation Competition and the Nicholas Loren Vocal Competition; First Prize winner in the National Orpheus Vocal Competition, The National Opera Association Competition, The Heida Hermanns International Voice Competition and the Mildred Miller International Vocal Competition. She has also been awarded grants from operatic organizations including the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation, Giulio Gari Foundation, Stella Maris International Competition (on board the MS Europa), Tanglewood Music Center, and Schulyer Foundation for Career Bridges, among others.
More information about Ms. Baldwin may be found on her website at www.elizabethbaldwinsoprano.com.
Jessica Ann Best
Jessica Ann Best is a striking cross-disciplinary artist, performing nationwide in opera, musical theater, and jazz. Ms. Best premiered the roles of Mrs. Otis in Gordon Getty’s The Canterville Ghost with LA Opera, The Stepmother in Anton Coppola’s, Lady Swanwhite at Opera Tampa, and Alice in Alice Ryley, by Michael Ching, with the Savannah Voice Festival.
Ms. Best recently made her debut in the role of Madeline in Three Decembers with Buffalo Opera Unlimited, where she served as director in the same production. Ms. Best is a known Carmen, singing the role with Salt Marsh Opera and Buffalo Opera Unlimited. Ms. Best tours The Great American Songbook and is a returning artist with Susie Mosher in The Lineup at the Birdland. Best is a returning soloist at Carnegie Hall, The Buffalo Philharmonic, and The New Jersey Festival Orchestra. She has performed with The Florida Orchestra, The Santa Fe Opera, and The Savannah Music Festival. Ms. Best appears in the roles of Bessie and Mary Rivers in Louis Karchin’s Jane Eyre on Naxos. Ms. Best toured Poland with the Nazareth University Choirs in May 2023, singing and directing opera scenes in Rzesźow Philharmonic and Academy of Music in Krakow. Ms. Best was the former Artistic Director and a professor of Voice at Nazareth Univeristy, singing and directing in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and created a new production of Cinderella.
Ms. Best’s previous roles with the Savannah Voice Festival include: Alice in Alice Ryley, The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Anina in La Traviata, Lucy in Anna Hunter, as well as a feature artist in many concerts and productions. Ms. Best was the former Director of Camp Voice and former Director of Education and Outreach at the Savannah Voice Festival. She has produced and directed several evenings, including Cole Porter, The Sacred Concert and is delighted to bring to life The Eleanors with Jodi Goble, Michael Ching, and the studio artists this year.
Ms. Best holds a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance and Opera from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Nazareth College.
Michael Ching
An opera composer/librettist, conductor, and songwriter, Michael Ching is the composer/librettist of the opera Speed Dating Tonight! With nearly one hundred productions since its 2013 premiere at the Janiec Opera of the Brevard Music Center, Speed Dating Tonight! is one of the most popular operas of the 21st century. His most recent project, All Dressed Up (No Place to Go) for L’arietta Productions in Singapore, includes nine quarantine-related songs which are now part of Speed Dating Tonight!. His newest opera, RSBE, had its premiere at the University of Alabama in 2020. In 2018-2019, two new one act operas had their premieres, Thrivers, at Palm Springs Opera Guild, and Eight Woods and a Van, at the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre. Additional shorter operas in 2018-19 included Birthday Clown at the Savannah VOICE Festival and Completing the Picture for Utah Opera’s commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad. As Composer-in-Residence of Savannah VOICE Festival, Michael wrote Alice Ryley (2015) and Anna Hunter (2017) two works with Savannah subjects. Other works include works include Slaying the Dragon and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opera a cappella, recorded on Albany Records. Michael’s other well known opera is Buoso’s Ghost. Buoso is a comic sequel to Gianni Schicchi. Recently, Buoso was performed at the Michigan Opera Theatre and OperaDelaware. In 2021, Savannah VOICE Festival will premiere his La Cenerentola sequel, A Royal Feast. Many of these operas have free downloadable perusals scores through Michael’s blog. Michael is Music Director of Amarillo Opera, Composer-in-Residence at Savannah Voice Festival, and Opera consultant at EC Schirmer. He is the former Artistic Director of Opera Memphis. In 2019, Michael was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Opera Association. Michael studied composition with Robert Ward at Duke University and Carlisle Floyd at the Houston Opera Studio. With a lifelong devotion to the craft of operatic composition learned through the success and failure of over a dozen operas, through composition study, and through years of conducting the standard operatic repertoire; and with a strong interest in folk and country music, Michael is a somewhat of an outlier in the world of new music.
Anna Farysej
Soprano Anna Farysej is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York under the supervision of Prof. Mignon Dunn and a doctoral candidate at The Chopin University of Music in Warsaw under Prof. Eugenia Rozlach. Last summer, Anna participated in the Savannah Voice Festival, further honing her craft and expanding her performance experience.
Upcoming engagements include the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor with Williamsburg Opera in Virginia and Governess in The Turn of The Screw at Royal Opera in Warsaw, Poland.
In past seasons, Anna has portrayed Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, and Zofia in Moniuszko’s Halka. She performed two one-act operas by Donizetti, Il giovedi grasso and Il campanello di notte, at the Warsaw Chamber Opera. She sang soprano roles from The Trial by Philip Glass at Castle Opera in Szczecin
She performed Hanna in Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor at the National Opera in Warsaw and Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Castle Opera. She has performed the solo soprano part in Mozart’s Requiem with the Pomeranian Philharmonic.
Anna’s versatility was further showcased at the Opera Theater of Saint Louis, where she performed Alexandra Giddens in Blitzstein’s Regina and Sonia Gonzalez in the world premiere of H. Ruo’s An American Soldier. She debuted at Opera na Zamku as Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen.
Anna has excelled in concert and competition, winning the Bel Canto Vocal Competition, placing second at the Golden Voices International Competition, and performing Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Chopin Chamber Orchestra. Her diverse repertoire includes oratorio works like Pergolesi’s and Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Poulenc’s Gloria.
Jodi Goble
Savannah VOICE Festival Composer in Residence
Composer Jodi Goble writes text-based, character-driven music fueled by her extensive background as a vocal coach and song-specialist collaborative pianist. Her compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally and featured on National Public Radio. She won the Iowa Music Teachers Association Commission Competition in 2013 and took second prize in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Competition in 2016. She also placed as a NATS ASCA finalist in 2008, 2017, 2020, and 2021, and as the honorable mention winner in 2015. Her art songs are published in anthologies by New Music Shelf and North Star Music.
Ms. Goble’s recent commissions include works for Seaglass Theater, Really Spicy Opera, I, the Siren, Voices of the Pearl, the Durward Ensemble, and Laura Strickling and the 40×40 Project. Her works have recently been performed at the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago’s Spring Lieder Lounge, the ASEAN Festival of Contemporary Music, Calliope’s Call, Songfest, the National Opera Center in New York City, the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris, San Francisco Opera’s Atrium Sessions, Jordan Hall, Ames Town and Gown, Omaha Under the Radar, and the Art Song Preservation Society of New York. Helen of Troy, her monodrama for mezzo-soprano and chamber instruments, was recorded and released by the Durward Ensemble on their Prophetic Revolutions album.
Ms. Goble is Full Teaching Professor in Voice at Iowa State University, the official pianist for the Simon Estes Roots and Wings Community Concert Series, and the official accompanist for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Guild Auditions in Iowa.
Peter Lake
Praised by the Houston Press for how he “…amazes with a clarion tenor that has the reedy projection of superstar-from-yore Jan Peerce” Peter Lake is an internationally performing crossover artist who debuted as Old Deuteronomy in Really Useful Group’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS aboard the Oasis of the Seas with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines International in 2023. He returned to reprise his role as Old Deuteronomy for multiple contracts in the 2024 season. This October Peter released his debut, full-length album of all his favorite Broadway hits, “Still Standing.” His acclaimed album is currently available on all streaming platforms! In 2025 Peter will be debuting the role of the Prince in Gulfshore Opera’s Rusalka and performing the leading tenor role of B.F. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with New Jersey Verismo Opera and Light Opera of New Jersey. In the Spring of 2024 Peter made his role debut as Roberto in Puccini’s rarely performed Le Villi with a return to Mobile Opera, in collaboration with Classical Ballet Mobile, along with a return to Pacific Opera Project to share in their ground-breaking English-Japanese language production of Madama Butterfly as B.F. Pinkerton.
Jorge Parodi
Internationally acclaimed conductor Jorge Parodi has worked extensively in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Recent credits include Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for Opera Tampa; Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires for New York City Opera, The Atlanta Opera and Opera Grand Rapids; Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Buenos Aires Lírica (Argentina); Britten’s The Turn of the Screw for the Castleton Festival in Virginia and The Banff Centre (Canada); Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann for Opera Orlando; Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges for The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center and the World Premiere of Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt, the latest opera by John Musto –a coproduction of On Site Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric’s Unlimited and Pittsburg Opera-. Upcoming engagements include his return to The Atlanta Opera and Opera Tampa, and his debut at Chautauqua Opera. Reviewed as having “the most expressive conducting hands since Stokowski” by the New York Daily News, Argentinean born Jorge Parodi has also worked with such companies as the Teatro Colón in Argentina, the Volgograd Opera in Russia, the Encuentros Internacionales de Opera in Mexico, the Tokyo International Vocal Arts Academy in Japan, and the International Vocal Arts Institute in Israel. He has collaborated with such artists as Isabel Leonard, Eglise Gutierrez, Tito Capobianco, Sherrill Milnes, Aprile Millo and Rufus Wainwright and has assisted conductors Lorin Maazel and Julius Rudel, among others. Maestro Parodi is the Music Director of Opera in Williamsburg (Virginia), where he has conducted Rigoletto, Il trovatore, L’elisir d’amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, La cenerentola and Le nozze di Figaro, among other titles. He is also the Music Director of the Senior Opera Theatre at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has led its productions to critical acclaim, including Schubert’s Die Verschworenen –that the New York Times praised as being “superbly performed” and the American premieres of Le Roi l’a dit by Délibes and Nina by Paisiello. A featured interview by editor-in chief F. Paul Driscoll to Maestro Parodi and his work with MSM Senior Opera Theater appeared in the March ’18 edition of Opera News.
Chad Sonka
Chad Sonka is establishing himself as a versatile American baritone, teacher, and director. He was consistently singing and teaching throughout the country for Savannah VOICE Festival and Iowa State University, where he serves on the voice faculty. Recently, he performed as the baritone soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem at Carnegie Hall with Iowa State University and Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder
Samantha Talore
Samantha Talore resides in the Berkshires of Western, MA, and spends much of her time curating programs and entertainment at Canyon Ranch Wellness Resort, where she had the great pleasure of meeting and working with Maria Zouves & David Friedman. As a concert and cabaret artist in the Berkshires, Samantha has performed with Berkshire Concert Choir and Stockbridge Festival Chorus and in such venues as the Whitney Center for the Arts, Historic The Red Lion Inn, The Colonial Theater and Barrington Stage Company. She is excited to announce her solo show, Trust the Wind, this December at Don’t Tell Mama in NYC, singing the songs of David Friedman with David Friedman at the piano.