Helen Zhibing Huang is a Chinese-born soprano with a wide range of musical interests. During the 2014-15 season, Miss Huang was featured as a soloist in Haydn’s Creation as well as Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Also in 2014-15, Miss Huang performed the role of the Corinthian Woman in Harold Farberman’s Medea. Other opera credits include: Carolina in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, and Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. She also created the role of the Young Drifter in Shawn Jaeger’s Payne Hollow. She performed Bach’s Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (BWV 63) and selections from Handel’s Messiah with the Albany Symphony. Other concert performances include Schubert’s Mass in G, and Bach’s Wer da gläubet und getauft wird (BWV 37). Miss Huang graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. She is currently at the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program. In her spare time, Miss Huang enjoys cooking traditional Chinese dishes, traveling and making new friends. Laura Strickling has appeared at Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, the Ravinia Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Festival, Songfest, Trinity Church on Wall Street, Dankhaus Chicago, the Washington National Cathedral, the inaugural season of Liederfest in Suzhou, China. and the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. An alumna of the Berkshire Opera Company Resident Artist Program, her operatic performances include Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimi (La Bohème), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), and Micaëla (Carmen). Her competition honors include the Liszt-Garrison International Competition, the Liederkranz competition, the Schubert Club competition, the Positively Poulenc competition, and the American Prize for Opera. She has appeared with SongFusion and Joy in Singing, and is on the roster of the Brooklyn Art Song Society and Vox3 Collective. Diane Kalinowski, soprano, recently made her international debut as a Finalist in the Elizabeth Connell Prize for Dramatic Sopranos through the Joan Sutherland/Richard Bonynge Foundation. Diane won Grand Prize in Rochester Lyric Opera’s LaDue Professional Recital Competition; 1st Place American Opera Idol Award at Connecticut Concert Opera; Finalist of New Jersey State Opera’s Alfredo Silipigni Competition; Semi-Finalist of Opera Theater Pittsburgh’s Mildred Miller International Voice Competition, and Semi- Finalist of New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera’s Vocal Competition. Diane was an apprentice with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, awarded the Kaplan Prize twice during an unprecedented three year term. Favorite operatic performances include the Tosca in Tosca, Marguerite in Faust, Lady Billows in Albert Herring, and New Prioress in Dialogues of the Carmelites. Equally comfortable on the concert stage, Diane has performed solos from the Vivaldi Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, the Poulenc Gloria, the Mozart Requiem and Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder. Hailed as having a “voice with great power and a sound that could propel her into the Wagnerian repertoire,” Soprano Rebecca Witty is making a name for herself in the classical music world. Most recently she performed the role of Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Buffalo Opera Unlimited. In January 2015, she proudly represented her hometown as the third place winner of the Great Lakes Region in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. As an Apprentice artist with the Santa Fe Opera in 2014, she was honored to take on the role of Lu Mu-Zhen in the American premiere of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. She has also been a young artist with Sarasota Opera and Des Moines Metro Opera. Equally at home on the concert stage, she has performed in concert halls across the U.S. including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Eastman’s Kodak Hall and Alice Tully Hall. Andra Erbar is an emerging young soprano. Her most recent performances have been with Cimarron Opera playing Casilda in The Gondoliers, and with Tulsa Project Theater playing Marian Paroo in The Music Man. In between these roles she performed with Tulsa Opera in the ensemble for Elmer Gantry and Carmen. In the 2012 through the 2013 season she was a Resident Artist at Central Florida Lyric Opera where recently she performed both Maria and (on alternate nights) Elsa Schraeder in the The Sound of Music. Last season, she performed First Lady in The Magic Flute, Liù in Turandot, and in addition she covered Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. Last summer she performed the role of Musetta in La Bohème with Ritorna all’Opera along with Verdi scenes in Liguria, Italy and at Casa Verdi in Milan. Andra completed her MM in Voice from the University of Oklahoma under the tutelage of Bradley Williams, also with occasional lessons with Marilyn Horne, and performances including Adele in Die Fledermaus, Zerlina, Marzelline in Fidelio, and numerous scenes including Juliette and Gilda. She performed the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe with Cimarron Opera Company. She has also performed in the ensembles of Lyric Theater of Oklahoma, Jewel Box Theater and Opera International. She owes her most recent vocal success to Kim Josephson and Regina Zona, her current teachers. Andra thanks her family, teachers, and coaches for their support. Praised for “astounding technical vocal ability, solid song interpretation and stage presence,” soprano Annie Gill continues to gain recognition as a promising young singer. Most recently, Ms. Gill performed the role of Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Opera NOVA. Ms. Gill appeared as the “Opera Singer” in the Season 2 Finale of House of Cards. Ms. Gill has received awards from the Barry Alexander International Vocal Competition, National Federation of Music Clubs, Russell C. Wonderlic Voice Competition, Orpheus Vocal Competition, and the Coeur d’Alene Symphony Young Artist Competition. Past roles include the title roles in Suor Angelica and Massenet’s Manon, Nedda (I Pagliacci), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Mimì and Musetta (La Bohème), The Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), and Pamina (The Magic Flute) with companies including The In Series, Baltimore Opera Theatre, Opera in the Ozarks, and Opera AACC. www.AnnieGill.com Carolyne DalMonte, soprano, has most recently been seen as Second Lady in Chicago Summer Opera’s energetic concert production of Die Zauberflöte. Other fully performed opera roles include Giannetta in L’elisir d’amore (OperaModo) and Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Westminster Choir College Opera Theatre). As a former mezzo-soprano, she has also performed as Octavian and Meg in scenes from Der Rosenkavalier and Little Women. In 2012 she attended the Opera Studio at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and was a finalist in the 2012 South Orange Symphony Competition. She also attended the 2013 OperaWorks program in Los Angeles, and was the 2013 recipient of the Phyllis-Brynn Julson award in the Civic Morning Musicals Competition in Syracuse. In the spring of 2014, Ms. DalMonte was a semi-finalist of the Orpheus Vocal Competition in Tennessee as well as a finalist in the Opera at San Nicola competition in August of 2014. After an exciting fall filled with auditions, Miss DalMonte is excited to announce that she will be spending her summer at the prestigious Aspen Music Festival and School, where she will be singing as a soprano with the Aspen Opera Theatre Center. In addition to her love of opera, Miss DalMonte is an avid lover of oratorio and song, and frequently is a soloist in concerts with Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, NJ. She will be singing as a soloist in the Duruflé Requiem with Nassau in March 2015. Ms. DalMonte holds a Masters in Vocal Pedagogy & Performance from Westminster Choir College, and a Bachelors in Voice Performance from the University of Delaware. She studies with Dr. Sharon Sweet, and currently sings and teaches in the New York metropolitan area. Soprano Yunjin Audrey Kim is the Grand Prize winner of the LaDue Professional Recital Competition and made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2013. Highlighted opera roles include Elisetta in Il Matrimonio Segreto, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, and Dido in Dido and Aeneas, to name a few. Her many concert solos include a performance of Messiaen’s Poémes pour Mi with the Eastman Philharmonia at Kodak Hall. In 2013, she was featured in the album, 'A Thousand Burnt Offerings' released in South Korea. Ms. Kim has served as music director and collaborative pianist for organizations including Opera Scenes at James Madison University, Rochester Association of Performing Arts and Pittsford School District. Kristina Bachrach is making a name for herself as an exciting and diverse young artist. In the 2013/2014 she made role debuts as Lucy in The Telephone and Mrs. Gobineau in The Medium with Opera Naples; as Emily Dickinson in Eva Kendrick’s Emily with the Thompson Street Opera Company in Louisville, KY; and most recently as Musetta in La Bohème with the Lyric Opera of Virginia. She sang recitals in four cities around the country under the auspices of the Brooklyn Art Song Society and also made concert and recital appearances with the Westchester Choral Society, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, the Moravian Music Foundation, the Banff Centre, the Cecilia Chorus of New York at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and was one of four finalists for the Joy in Singing Foundation’s Artist Awards. The 2013 season found her in residence at Nashville Opera, where she performed the roles of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte and Clorinda in La Cenerentola. In 2011 she created the role of Lucinda in the world premiere of Nico Muhly's opera Dark Sisters with Gotham Chamber Opera and in 2012 appeared in the same role with Opera Philadelphia.