Alexandra Enyart, conductor
Alex Enyart is a rising orchestra and opera conductor currently based in Chicago, Illinois. Her performances have received positive reviews from The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Classical Review (“Conductor Alexandra Enyart, who helmed the ensemble in Chicago Fringe Opera’s As One last season, again demonstrated why she is a podium talent to watch. She directed the lean ensemble with finesse, control, and technical grace”), Schmopera (“performed throughout the evening with sensitivity towards the singers and a unified sound"), and many others. As an active performer in Chicago, Alex works as the Music Director for Thompson Street opera Company. She has also worked as a guest conductor for Chicago Fringe Opera, Another Voice Collaborative, Third Eye Theatre Ensemble, and Chicago Vocal Arts Consortium.
2016 marked the debut of Alex’s international career with a performance with the Tomsk Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia. She has worked as an apprentice with the Louisville Orchestra and Kentucky Opera and was invited to work with Anthony Maeillo as a result of winning the 2017 CODA conducting competition. In 2018 she won the CCM Mozart Overture competition and was invited to be a member of the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Project Inclusion. There she works closely with Mei-Ann Chen and other talented colleagues from around the country and world as they strive to bring more diversity to the highest level of art making. She has had the privilege to work and study with Kimcherie Lloyd, Mei-Ann Chen, Joe Mechavich, Harold Farberman, Mark Gibson, Teddy Abrams, and Donald Portnoy among many others.
As a transgender conductor, Alex also has a focus on helping to create a more equitable and diverse musical environment. She is an active Board Member with Chicago Vocal Arts Consortium where she helped charter and launch the Sing-Thru's program to help singers and performers explore the standard operatic repertoire. She can also be found working with ResonaTe - an all transgender choir - in an effort to create a world that fosters and accepts all voices.
Karina Kontorovich, pianist
Karina Kontorovitch was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. At the age of five, she started attending the Music School for Gifted Children, where she continued to study piano with Olga Manukyan until the family immigrated to the United States in 1991. Ms. Kontorovitch earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, where her teachers include Sylvia Wang, Alan Chow, Laurence Davis and Elizabeth Buccheri. Ms. Kontorovitch has taught at the Music Arts School in Highland Park and has been on the faculty of the Merit School of Music in Chicago since 2001, teaching all ages and levels. She also serves as an accompanist and vocal coach at Northwestern University, working primarily in the studio of Kurt R. Hansen.
Elizabeth Parker is a vocal coach at North Park University and at the prestigious Austrian summer program, AIMS in Graz. She assisted Philip Gossett at the Center for Italian Opera Studies, University of Chicago, until his death earlier this year. Her translations of scholarly papers have appeared in Opera Quarterly and the Vox Imago series in collaboration with La Scala, as well as the critical editions of Rossini and Saint-Saëns with Bärenreiter. Beth has worked in opera as coach and pianist, chorus master, university lecturer in music history and theory, and opera workshop director over four decades. After graduate work at Indiana University, where she spent six years working with Virginia Zeani, she apprenticed at the Merola Program of San Francisco Opera and studied with Joan Dornemann and Nico Castel at the Metropolitan Opera. While in New York she ran a young artist program for Jerome Hines, accompanying for Franco Corelli, Henry Lewis, Frank Corsaro, and master classes with Marilyn Horne and other luminaries. Currently she is collaborating with Chicago's Fourth Coast Ensemble in a series called "Alla Rossini" that will highlight solos, duets, trios, and quartets from Bärenreiter's forthcoming critical edition of Rossini's Vocal Chamber Music. Beth also teaches master classes on vocal ornamentation, recitative, and repertoire for the Chicago Vocal Arts Coalition, where she recently prepared Mark Adamo's Little Women, Mozart's La finta giardiniera, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail .
Roberta Terchi-Nocentini, pianist
Italian collaborative pianist Roberta Terchi Nocentini has an extensive repertoire across both vocal and instrumental genres. She has regularly performed in recitals and concerts in Strasburg, Bucharest, and London. Highlights include chamber music events at Wigmore Hall, St. James in Piccadilly, and David Josefowitz Recital Hall. As a répétiteur, she has worked on a broad range of operas including La Traviata with Teatro Verdi (2007), Carmen at Anfiteatro Romano di Terni (2006), The Little Sweep with Società Aquilana dei Concerti (2007), and L’Impresario in Angustie with Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese (2010). She has also appeared as a pianist in recital with the vocal faculty of the Royal Academy of Music Opera Programme alongside Gareth Hancock. In April 2016, she worked as a language coach and répétiteur for Il Tabarro with the Melos Sinfonia at St. Luke’s in Barbican under the baton of Oli Zeffman.
Roberta recently graduated (with Merit) from the Royal Academy of Music with a Master of Arts in Piano Accompaniment under the tutelage of Michael Dussek and James Baillieu. In London, she regularly worked with coaches Michael Chance, Richard Stokes, and Nicole Tibbles. She has honed her technique from a variety of master classes with Bengt Forsberg, Jeremy Silver and Mark Shanahan during her tenure in London; Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marco Boemi and Robert Kettelsonn during her tenure in Italy; and with Jeff Cohen and Brigitte Belleys in Strasburg. Roberta holds Masters of Music in Piano (with Distinction) and in Opera Répétiteur (cum laude) from the Conservatorio Statale di Musica “Alfredo Casella” - L’Aquila where she studied with Pietro Ladeluca, Luciano Bellini, and Marina Boesch. Roberta also obtained a Master of Arts in Modern Languages and Cultures (with Distinction) from the University of L’Aquila.
As a teacher, she began teaching at the JazzOn Music School in Italy. In London, Roberta worked as an Italian Language Coach for the Trinity Laban Conservatoire and for the Piano Accompaniment Course at the Royal Academy of Music. In Chicago, Roberta has worked as an Italian Language Coach for Chicago Vocal Arts Consortium’s Summer Opera Workshop of La finta giardiniera (2018) and Sing-Thru of L’elisir d’amore (2019).
In 2009, she founded the Suonincanto association which aims to give young musicians the opportunity to perform in prestigious venues.
www.robertaterchinocentini.com