Milena Kitic, a renowned mezzo-soprano, has performed numerous roles with opera companies around the world throughout the last three decades.

Perhaps best known for her signature role of Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen, Kitic has headlined in major performance venues across the United States and Europe such as the National Theater in Belgrade, Serbia (former Yugoslavia), Aalto Theater Essen in Germany, Washington D.C. Opera, Baltimore Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Pacific, and Metropolitan Opera.

She received numerous accolades for her performances, including the German Music Critic’s Award for Performer of the Season in 1998 and the Opera Pacific Guild’s Diva of the Year in 2005. The International Jeunesses Musicales Competition in Belgrade, Serbia, has established a special prize for “the best young mezzo-soprano” in Kitic’s name.

Her talent and incredible career in music earned her the inaugural Artist-in-Residence Award given by Chapman University in Orange, California, where she is an adjunct professor and master class instructor. She also works closely with the Orange County High School of the Arts and many universities and music organizations in Southern California.

Kitic currently serves as chair of artistic excellence at LA Opera with whom she most recently performed the role of Carmen, Albine in Thais (with Placido Domingo), Mrs. Noah in Noah’s Flood, and Suzuki in Madame Butterfly (both conducted by J. Conlon). Among other recent performances are her roles in Carmen and Amneris in Aida with the Pacific Symphony in Costa Mesa, CA, the grand opening concert of Chapman University’s Musco Center for the Arts, the role of The Witch in Hansel and Gretel with the Symphonic Society of Orange County, and the Alto part in Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Madison Symphony and Pacific Symphony Orchestras.

In the past year, Kitic has joined the Board of the Parnassus Society, which is committed to the growth of cultural advancement in Orange County, has established The Milena Kitic Outstanding Mezzo-Soprano Award at The Mentoris Vocal Competition in Pasadena, started mentoring students from Newport Harbor High School in opera and music, and was recognized by the Loren L. Zachary Society for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles for her work as a professional Opera Singer, Educator, and Contributor to the opera community.

Kitic presently resides in Newport Beach, California and runs her private vocal studio.

 

“The clarion-voiced, impressive” (New York Times) Lirico Spinto tenor Bruce Sledge has been praised for his “bright, attractive sound and superb technical skills” that he has shared with audiences at major opera houses around the world over his career spanning more than two decades.

So far this season Sledge has been involved in projects at the Metropolitan opera including covering the title role in Wagner’s Lohengrin and the role of Sergei in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mzinsk.

Last season Mr. Sledge’s engagements included performing as tenor soloist in the Verdi Requiem with Seattle Symphony, a reprisal of the role of Paolo Erisso in Rossini’s Maometto Secondo with Washington Concert Opera, and his role debut as Don José in Opera Colorado’s Carmen. He also returned to the Metropolitan Opera covering the title role in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos. He was the tenor soloist in The Parnassus Society’s annual operatic concert at Soka University.

In the 2019-20 season, Sledge made his role debut as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly in a Metropolitan Opera “Live in HD” transmission seen live by over 350,000 viewers in over 70 countries worldwide. He was also seen at UCLA’s Royce Hall as a tenor soloist in Rachel Fuller’s Animal Requiem.

In recent seasons, Sledge returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for performances of Jean in Le Prophète and to the Welsh National Opera as Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice and Macduff in Macbeth. He was praised by Opera Wire for his “dramatic versatility” for his portrayal of Bacchus in the Santa Fe Opera’s Ariadne auf Naxos, and Opera Canada raved that his “radiant, voluminous tenor and ease with language” as Lord Riccardo Percy in Anna Bolena with the Canadian Opera Company was “spot-on.” A regular roster member of the Metropolitan Opera, Sledge made his debut as Almaviva in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, followed by performances as Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and King of Naples in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest.

Sledge counts among his career highlights singing the role of the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto with companies including Vancouver Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Tulsa Opera and in Avenches, Switzerland; Paolo Erisso in Rossini’s Maometto Secondo with the Canadian Opera Company and Santa Fe Opera; Leicester in Maria Stuarda with the Minnesota Opera, Welsh National Opera and Swedish National Opera; Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Hamburgische Staatsoper and Tulsa Opera; Leicester in Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra with the Rossini Opera Festival; and Ernesto in Don Pasquale at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro Comunale di Bologna and New York City Opera. He performed the role of the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Léopold in La Juive at La Fenice; Alfredo in La Traviata at the Royal Danish Opera; Ferrando in Così Fan Tutte at the Pittsburgh Opera; and as Tonio in La Fille du Régiment on the Teatro Comunale di Bologna’s tour to Savonlinna. As Vladimir Vladimirescu and the Fisherman in the double-bill of Mozart’s The Impresario and Stravinsky’s Rossignol at Santa Fe, Sledge “sang with appealing lyricism” and “performed to glorious poetic effect” (Opera News).

As a concert soloist, Sledge has performed in The Defiant Requiem in Asheville, NC and Vienna, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Spoleto USA Festival and the Radio Television Ireland Orchestra in Dublin, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the National Symphony, Schubert’s Mass No. 6 with the San Diego Symphony, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Berkeley Symphony, and he has sung with the Risca Male Choir in Wales and Opera Companies of Tampa, Atlanta and Hong Kong. Several appearances with the San Francisco Symphony have included Mozart’s Requiem, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, and singing as the Shepherd in Oedipus Rex and soloist in Schubert’s Mass No. 6 under Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas. With the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, he has performed concerts of Bartok’s Cantata Profana and Kodaly’s Psalmus Hungaricus, and sang Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer with the New York City Ballet. Sledge appeared in recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in celebration of Marilyn Horne’s 75th Birthday.

Bruce Sledge recorded the role of the Fox in Spanish and Catalan versions of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen for the BBC with Kent Nagano, has been seen on the NBC sitcom Scrubs, and can be heard on the soundtrack of the motion picture The Sum of All Fears.

Sledge was a finalist in the 2002 World Voice Masters Competition in Monte Carlo, a finalist in Placido Domingo’s Operalia 2000 World Opera Contest, and a national finalist in the 2000 Loren L. Zachary Vocal Competition. In 1998, he was a Western Regional Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and was awarded first place in the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Competition. Bruce Sledge received his master’s degree in vocal arts from the University of Southern California.

Panamanian-American baritone Nmon Ford begins a new artistic chapter as the composer, librettist, and title-role performer of House of Orfeus (previously Orfeus, A House Music Opera), which was scheduled for its world premiere at London’s Young Vic Theatre (postponed due to Covid-19). The show will be presented in 2024 as a co-production with Lincoln Center and Opera Carolina. Nmon has enjoyed success in increasingly challenging and dramatic repertoire, most recently in concert with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in excerpts from Aïda (Amonasro). He made his role and company debut as Crown in the English National Opera/Metropolitan Opera co-production of Porgy and Bess, preceded by his role and festival debut at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival as The Celebrant in Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, Iago (Otello) with the Atlanta Symphony, Jochanaan (Salome) at Pittsburgh Opera, and the Celebrant (MASS) at Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus with the Salzburg Mozarteumorchester. He appeared with the Dallas Symphony in Vaughn Williams’ Sea Symphony, Chicago Opera Theater in the title role of a new production of Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth, Atlanta Symphony at Carnegie Hall (Brahms’ Requiem), St. Louis Symphony (Carmina Burana), and Milwaukee Symphony (Brahms’ Requiem). After performing Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire (ONPL) conducted by John Axelrod, Nmon was immediately re-engaged by the ONPL for Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Fauré’s Requiem.

Nmon made his Italian debut at Teatro delle Muse in Ancona in the title role of a new production of The Emperor Jones directed by Henning Brockhaus and conducted by Bruno Bartoletti (for which he received the Premio Franco Corelli for the outstanding debut of the season), his company debut with Cincinnati Opera as Riolobo in Francesca Zambello’s production of Florencia en el Amazonas, and his role debut as The Traveler in a new production of Death In Venice at Hamburg State Opera. He appeared with Michigan Opera Theater as Zurga in Zandra Rhodes’ production of Les pêcheurs de perles, Teatro Comunale di Bologna in the title role of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s production of Don Giovanni, and the Szeged Open-Air Festival in Hungary as Escamillo (Carmen). Nmon gave his first performances at Italy’s Sferisterio Festival in new productions of Attila and Juditha Triumphans, preceded by Don Giovanni in Ancona. He debuted the roles of di Luna (Il trovatore) with Virginia Opera and Thoas (Iphigénie en Tauride) with Hamburg State Opera, and bowed as Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Washington National Cathedral with the Cathedral Choral Society conducted by J. Reilly Lewis.

In previous seasons Nmon sang both Scarpia (Tosca) and the title role in a new production of Billy Budd with Hamburg Opera; with the Atlanta Symphony conducted by Robert Spano he recorded Jennifer Higdon’s Dooryard Bloom (written for him) and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music for Telarc. He made his Ravinia Festival debut with James Conlon conducting the Chicago Symphony in Shostakovich’s Symphony #13 (“Babi Yar”), which he also performed with Maestro Conlon and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Additional engagements include Carmina Burana with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and covering the role of Amfortas with Los Angeles Opera in Robert Wilson’s production of Parsifal starring Plácido Domingo and conducted by Kent Nagano. He received critical acclaim at Spoleto Festival USA as the title role in Don Giovanni, in a production by Günter Krämer conducted by Emmanuel Villaume.

Having begun his musical training in piano at age three, Nmon has since appeared with–in addition to the previously mentioned companies–San Francisco Opera, Teatro Sociale di Rovigo, Utah Opera, Portland Opera, and Opera Memphis in roles such as Iago (Otello), Kurwenal (Tristan und Isolde), Renato (Un ballo in maschera), Amonasro (Aïda), Germont (La traviata), and the High Priest (Samson et Dalila). Other roles include Telramund (Lohengrin), Posa (Don Carlo), and Carlo (Ernani).

Nmon has worked with conductors Louis Langrée, James Conlon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Robert Spano, Bruno Bartoletti, Kent Nagano, Marin Alsop, Emmanuel Villaume, John Wilson, John Adams, and Simone Young. His concert appearances include the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, National Symphony, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society (Boston, MA), and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He made his New York recital debut under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation.

In addition to his Grammy-winning Naxos and Telarc releases, Nmon has recorded for Universal Music Group/Decca (Vai DaCapo – Songs of Delight, Billboard Top 20 Classical and Classical Crossover) and Koch International (Villa-Lobos’ Symphony #10, “Amerindia”). His awards include First Place in the Wagner Division of the Liederkranz Foundation of New York Competition, as well as major prizes from the Gerda Lissner Foundation and the George London Foundation. He earned his Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees in music from the University of Southern California, where he graduated with honors for both degrees.

“Warm, grand and rich”, Cheryl Lin Fielding’s pianism has taken her to some of the finest stages in the world, including major venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Recital Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Juilliard Theater, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Musco Center for the Arts, and Soka Performing Arts Center. A sought-after recital partner and vocal coach, Fielding has been honored with the Grace B. Jackson Prize in Excellence by the Tanglewood Music Festival, recognized by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, and received the distinguished Gwendolyn Koldofsky Award in Keyboard Collaborative Arts. Cheryl’s musical training includes three degrees from the Juilliard School.

Fielding has had the honor of working alongside luminaries such as Christian Badea, John DeMain, Luana Devol, Enrique Arturo Diemecke, James Levine, Timothy Lindberg, Angela Meade, George Mester, Carol Neblett, Linda Watson, and Dolora Zajick, and has served as music director, vocal coach, pianist, adjudicator for organizations including Dolora Zajick’s Institute of Young Dramatic Voices, the Philadelphia Virtuosi, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Pacific, Operafestival di Roma, Opera Laguna, Opera Santa Barbara, Opera San Jose, OperaWorks, Pacific Symphony, Opera Chapman, California State University at Northridge, Azusa Pacific University, the Juilliard School, and the USC Thornton Opera. Dr. Fielding is passionate about keeping the arts thriving in the communities and has recently help produce several concerts with Parnassus Society at Soka Performing Arts Center. She is presently the Artistic Director of Parnassus Society, and coaches at Opera UCLA and Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices.

THE ALL-AMERICAN BOYS CHORUS (AABC) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization headquartered in Santa Ana, CA. The Chorus is open to boys of all races, faiths and socioeconomic backgrounds. Beginning as a small church choir in Anaheim, CA in 1970, and has grown to become an internationally-touring non-denominational chorus that fosters the creative and leadership development of over one hundred boys each year. Over the years since our founding, the Chorus has continued to grow, both in size and scope, in order to provide more boys with the unique creative and leadership development opportunities the AABC offers. We have expanded our programming to include annual summer camps as well as programs for high school students who are outside of the 8-15 age range for our Chorus Program. In the 1970s, we began touring in the United States and Canada, and in 1988 booked our first overseas international tour to Romania, Austria and Russia, giving our choir international recognition. Since then we have continued to tour each year, increasing our international acclaim and providing hundreds of boys with the opportunity to travel and perform to a range of audiences throughout the world.

Subsequent tours have seen our boys perform to standing ovations all across the globe, including in Australia, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Macau, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan. The Chorus’ most recent concert tour saw them performing in 2018 in eleven cities across China.  Factor in 59 other concert tours to Asia, Australia, Canada, and throughout the U.S., and it’s clear that members of The All-American Boys Chorus are true musical ambassadors.

Wes Martin, conductor, arranger, educator. Born and raised in Australia, Wes has been living in Southern California since 2002 when he became the Artistic Director for the All-American Boys Chorus.

After graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Wes was awarded the prized Hungarian State Scholarship and went on to study at the esteemed Kodály Interzet, Hungary. This unique experience impressed upon him the beauty and joy of choral singing and its potential to transform the lives of both performer and audience. Classically trained as a singer and music educator, Wes’ diverse musical interests cover many different styles and genres, his principal interest being popular music styles. With expertise in building choral tone and a special interest in developing choral ensemble with the child’s voice and over twenty years’ experience with many different choral ensembles, Wes believes in the life enriching experiences that can be had through music and especially choral singing.

Under Wes’ musical direction the All-American Boys Chorus has been delighting audiences with its engaging, fun performances and has emerged as a favorite of event organizers and concert presenters regionally and nationally, as well as becoming one of America’s premier boys’ choirs. Under his leadership, the All-American Boys Chorus received the coveted Outstanding Arts Organization Award for 2011.

Over the years, along with the AABC, Wes’ collaborations have included; John Williams, Josh Groban, The Vienna Boys Choir, The Disney Company, Jerry Lewis, Cartoon Network, The Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Opera Pacific, The Canadian Brass, The Philadelphia Boys Choir, The Masters of Harmony and the Tournament of Roses. He has led the AABC in numerous TV appearances including; CHRISTMAS IN L.A., CARTOON NETWORK, JERRY’S KID’S and SCRUBS, as well as being recognized for his work with GOOD NEWS FOR KID’S, one of the region’s major charitable events. Wes has led numerous acclaimed international tours and performances in world-class venues such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, London; Carnegie Hall, New York and The Sydney Opera House.

Wes particularly enjoys crafting arrangements especially suited for the AABC, or a specific event. His arrangements have featured in many AABC performances.

As an educator with more than twenty years’ experience Wes has developed a specialized Kodály-based curriculum focusing on both music literacy and ear training, all the while believing that it’s never too late to apply this leading method of music education. As a clinician, Wes’ style is relaxed, fun and engaging as he builds skills, ability and confidence in his students. His highly acclaimed education outreach performances, presented as part of his regular touring schedule with the All-American Boys Chorus, have reached thousands of students, further enhancing the reputation of the AABC and making it highly sought after as a touring ensemble bringing music education to many regions across the United States.

Wes’ wife, and best friend, Sue, does her best to keep him grounded while their two sons, Harry & Thomas, keep him in the ‘here and now’ and daily make him a better teacher.