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.
Javier Arrey
Heralded for his “superbly refined voice” and “laudable performances” (Washington Classical Review), Chilean born American baritone Javier Arrey has appeared in houses like The Vienna State Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Palau de Les Arts, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Nacional de Chile, Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera, among others. Javier Arrey has collaborated with conductors including Eun Sun Kim, Lorin Maazel, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, James Gaffigan, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Plácido Domingo, Antony
Walker and Marco Armiliato. His repertoire includes, among others, roles like Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor), Belcore (L’Elisir D’Amore), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Conte Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Conte di Luna (Il Trovatore), Jago (Otello), Renato (Un Ballo in Maschera), Rodrigo (Don Carlo), Alfio (Cavalleria Rusticana), Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Riccardo (I Puritani). Baritone Javier Arrey had the privilege and honor of performing twice in the U.S. Supreme Court for the Honorable Justices invited by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In addition to his work on the opera stage, baritone Javier Arrey is a world-class interpreter of Lieder and concert repertoire. Recent performances include Giovanni (Don Giovanni) at Savannah VOICE Festival and Opera Tampa, Beethoven Ninth symphony with HHSO and Verdi Requiem with Savannah Philharmonic under the baton of Maestro Keitaro Harada.
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.
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 recently returned from a tour of the Mediterranean aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas as Old Deuteronomy in Andrew Lloydd Webber’s musical CATS. Peter also joined Pacific Opera Project to perform in their ground-breaking interpretation and production of Madama Butterfly as the leading tenor, B.F. Pinkerton. In the fall of 2024 he released his debut, full-length album, Still Standing, which went on to chart in the top ten of Billboard’s Classical Crossover Top Ten! 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. In the Spring of 2025 Peter will make a featured appearance with Opera Idaho in his first collaboration with the company for their Broadway Pops concert presented by the Boise Philharmonic.
Amy Shoremount-Obra
Sponsored by Toby Hollenberg
American Soprano AMY SHOREMOUNT-OBRA is the Top Prize Winner of the 2018 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition Wagner Division, and made her Metropolitan Opera Debut in 2014 as First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – a role she has performed at the Met sixteen times. Recent appearances include the title roles of Turandot and Salome, Leonore in Fidelio, and many other roles and countless concerts including Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with companies such as Opera Carolina, Opera Grand Rapids, the LA Philharmonic, South Florida Symphony, Knoxville Opera, Odyssey Opera (Boston), Southern Illinois Music Festival, Hawaii International Music Festival, NYC Opera, Annapolis Opera, Maryland Opera, Opera Las Vegas, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Spoleto Festival- Italy, Pacific Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, Varna International, Opera Orchestra of NY, National Chorale, Oregon Music Festival, Savannah VOICE Festival, Savannah Philharmonic, The Juilliard Orchestra, Adelphi Orchestra, NY Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmònica del estado de Chihuahua (MX). Ms. Shoremount-Obra appears as First Lady on the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017 recording of Mozart’s The Magic Flute featuring Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo and Nathan Gunn with Maestro Evan Rogister and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. She has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall five times and has appeared in recital throughout the US, and in the UK and Sweden. Ms. Shoremount-Obra is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music (BM & MM) and The Juilliard School (AD Opera Studies). She was a full scholarship recipient while a student at Juilliard.
As a teaching professional, Ms. Shoremount-Obra was appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor of Voice at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College (CUNY) in 2017 where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate vocal performance majors. She previously held an adjunct position as a professor of vocal methods at The College of New Jersey and several artist-in-residency positions at Lawrence Conservatory of Music (Wisconsin) and at the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua in Mexico. She has given master classes and lectures -including her research on Manuel Garcia, bel canto, the first season of Italian Opera in North America and the arrival of western instrumental and vocal music in the Hawaii Islands – at Lawrence, the NJ Governor’s School of the Arts, the University of Tulsa, for the Pennsylvania Music Education Association, at the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua and at additional various festivals and workshops throughout the United States. Her article titled “The Breath Support Conundrum and Manuel Garcìa” was published in 2020 by ACDA-PA. She is currently on faculty at the Varna International Music Academy (South Carolina & in Italy) and The Savannah VOICE Festival – premier training programs for young opera singers – and has held previous positions with the Juilliard Nord-Anglia Summer Voice Program in Orlando, FL , the OperaTunity Voice Program with the Palm Springs Opera Guild in Palm Springs, CA and the AT Balance Arts Center Summer Intensive (NYC). She also maintains a private studio in both Manhattan and New Jersey.
Ms. Shoremount-Obra was a part of the inaugural season of the SVF well over a decade ago and has since appeared in SVF productions of La Bohème and Don Giovanni, gave a recital with pianist Christopher Cooley in 2015, and appeared in many concerts and galas over the years- including the 2012 concert with legendary Carlisle Floyd at the Telfair Museum. She is thrilled to join the voice faculty of the Savannah Voice Festival in 2024 in addition to performing in the Sanctuary concert on August 11th.