Opera Uprising

Thank you for joining us on this journey. Now it's time to turn the page and start a new chapter. 

Please keep in touch: https://thereddiva.com/

Thank you to all the wonderful voices that have graced this podcast with your thoughts, ideas, and vision over the past couple years.

Thank you to my staff of wonderful assistants who helped keep me moving along the way.

Thanks to Clawson Solutions Group, (www.csolgroup.com) who assisted with podcast production during these two seasons.

And, lastly, and most of all ... thank you to you, who's listened in, and given me, and this topic your time. 

Keep in touch, great things are coming...

Ellen Broen is a certified life and entrepreneurship coach for creative business owners and industry leaders who are ready toi make breakthroughs in their lives and businesses.

Ellen triple-majored and graduated with a 4.0 grade average, sang operas in Italy, performed jazz in Austraila, and lived in France. She started her own busness while getting her masters and left higher education debt-free. 

Ellen is a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation with a private practice, group program, and workshop series. She's a graduate of the Accomplishment Coaching and Leadership Training Intensive, and also serves as the "Coaches's Coach" helping other coaches develop their breakthroughs businesses, and brand.

She is also the creative coach for Elizabeth.  

You can find her on the web at ellenbroen.com or on Youtube at @ellenbroen

Soprano Ann Moss is an acclaimed recording artist and champion of contemporary vocal music who performs and collaborates with a dynamic array of living composers. Often described as a "fearless performer” of some of the most challenging music of our time, her high, flexible voice has been singled out by Opera News for “beautifully pure floated high notes” and by San Francisco Classical Voice for “powerful expression” … “clear, silvery tones and passionate sweetness." Mike Telin of Cleveland Classical writes, her “long fluid lines are exquisite.” In addition to working closely with well-known composers such as Jake Heggie, John Harbison, Kaija Saariaho, Aaron Jay Kernis and David Conte, Ann seeks out and performs works by new and emerging voices at forums, festivals and concert series across the USA. She has released two portrait albums: Currents (Angels Share Records 2013) and Love Life (ASR 2016), both produced and recorded by multi-GRAMMY® award winner Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound. She can also be heard on releases from labels including Albany, Arsis Audio, Jaded Ibis Productions, Naxos, Navona Records, PARMA, and Ravello Records. Moss recently made her solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony singing the music of Mozart, Gershwin and Rogers under conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser. Highlights of the 2022-23 season include performances of Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Gérard Grisey’s Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil with After Everything Ensemble, and a concert tour in support of her newly released album Lifeline, which features re-imagined chants by Medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen recorded remotely with instrumental collaborators around the United States.

Elizabeth Rowe is a Leadership and High-Performance coach who brings the creativity, discipline, nuance and courage of a world-class performing artist into the coaching conversation.  Elizabeth's coaching practice helps high achievers across all industries learn to thrive in demanding work environments and successfully navigate career or personal transitions, all while remaining true to themselves.  She is also the principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a social justice advocate, and a public speaker. After her landmark equal pay lawsuit in 2018 The Boston Globe honored her as a Bostonian of the Year, calling her “The Fighter.” Her ongoing commitment to opening up dialogue about complex subjects led to her TEDx talk, The Lonely Onlys, where she shared her personal story of learning to embrace the powers of imagination and vulnerability to create connection and community. You can learn more about all of this at iamelizabethrowe.com

Elizabeth Bachman is THE go-to person for advanced level training in Speaking, Presentation Skills, Sales and Leadership. With a lifetime spent perfecting the art of presenting, she helps high-level clients master a message that brings * the Funding they need, * the Allies they want and * the Recognition they deserve.

A sought-after speaker and strategist in Silicon Valley – as well as nationally and internationally – Elizabeth works with leaders and influencers who need to become concise and compelling presenters. She helps them present as smart, down-to-earth, loose, friendly—even funny—and still be taken seriously.

Elizabeth has directed such luminaries as Luciano Pavarotti & Placido Domingo in more than 50 operas around the world, giving her a wealth of tools to help business professionals become respected presenters. Fluent in 5 languages, she is adept at working with presenters from many countries, bringing her global experience to her clients.

Host of the award-winning international podcast: Speakers Who Get Results, Elizabeth interviews experts from around the world on presentation skills, leadership & visibility as well as communication challenges that range from presenting internationally to gender misunderstandings.

Elizabeth is an award-winning contributing author to the international best-seller “Messages That Matter,” as well as the creator of “How to Get Booked as a Speaker: Taking Your Show on the Road” – the ultimate guide to filling your calendar with lucrative speaking gigs.

Elizabeth has been featured in numerous media interviews alongside – among others – business greats Dr. Ivan Meisner, Dan Kennedy & Steve Forbes. She presents regularly at such corporations as Bank of America, Gilead Sciences, FEMA, McKesson and Turner Construction as well as many groups for women in tech, science and law. In more than 50 operas around the world, Elizabeth has directed such luminaries as Luciano Pavarotti & Placido Domingo, giving her a wealth of tools to help business professionals become respected presenters. Fluent in 5 languages, she is adept at working with presenters from many countries, bringing her global experience to her clients.

Founder and Artistic Director of TOP Opera, a summer opera training program in the Austrian Alps, she continues to give back to the opera community.

Maren Montalbano began her vocal career with the San Francisco Girls Chorus at age seven, and has been singing ever since. A graduate of both New England Conservatory of Music and Tufts University, Ms. Montalbano can be heard in three GRAMMY Award-winning albums: John Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning work, On the Transmigration of Souls (2005), and Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (2018), and Lansing McLoskey’s Zealot Canticles (2019), on which she is a featured soloist. She recorded Douglas Cuomo’s opera Arjuna’s Dilemma with Anonymous 4 members Susan Hellauer and Jacqueline Horner, which was released in 2008 to critical acclaim.  She appears on over a dozen commercial recordings, including Alice Parker’s Listen Lord and The Family Reunion, Kile Smith’s Vespers, Lewis Spratlan’s Hesperus is Phosphorus, and Ted Hearne’s Sound from the Bench.

In the past five years, Ms. Montalbano has been a guest artist with Lyric Fest, Choral Arts Philadelphia, Network for New Music and Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. When she performed the modern premiere of Destinos vencen finezas, a 17th century zarzuela by Juan Francisco de Navas, with Philadelphia’s Baroque orchestra, Tempesta di Mare, her dramatic interpretation was hailed as “pure, suave and sensuous” (Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2015). When she premiered the role of Andy Warhol #2 in Andy: a POPera (Bearded Ladies Cabaret and Opera Philadelphia), the Broad Street Review called her singing “impeccable.”

Her debut album, Sea Tangle: Songs from the North, featuring all women composers and performers, was released in December 2016.

During the pandemic of 2020-21, Ms. Montalbano turned to the digital world. She wrote, produced, and starred in an interactive digital one-woman show called The Bodice Ripper Project, which had its world premiere at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and she started a podcast of the same name. Other pandemic world premiere projects include David Lang’s in nature (The Crossing/Warren Miller Performing Arts Center), Pete Wyer’s Spring Street Opera (American Opera Projects), and the release of six different commercial albums with various collaborators.

The 2021-22 season features Ms. Montalbano in more world premieres, both live and digital, from a podcast musical by Jennifer Rosenfeld to a work by Lansing McLoskey honoring the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Ms. Montalbano lives in New Jersey and sings professionally throughout a wide geographic area with such groups as Opera Company of Philadelphia, Trio Eos, and The Crossing. She is passionate about keeping artists employed doing what they do best. Ms. Montalbano currently studies voice with Julianne Baird.

Laura Hutchinson (Pronouns: She/They) has rarely followed the path well-trod. Some would say she has taken lots of detours, but each path she has taken has led her to new experiences and new perspectives that she is able to bring along her journey. Laura has a Master of Science in Education, focused on college student personnel and has worked closely with college students for more than a decade. She has worked in corporate finance, hospitality, retail, faith-based non-profit, and higher education. These diverse experiences have led Laura to build relationships with many types of people. The thing she has found to be common among all people, especially those who experience marginalization, is a desire to simultaneously be authentically themselves and be respected and valued.

Through her focus on intersectional LGBTQ+ support, she has learned many strategies for seeing, understanding, empowering people on the margins, and collaborating with them and those in power to affect organizational change. Laura helps communities practice proactive and authentic inclusion.

Her award-winning research on what LGBTQ+ folks actually want and expect in allies led Laura to a paradigm shift in the way we think about allyship.

Megan Ihnen is a “new music force of nature.” The act of live performance is integral to Megan’s work and her performances thrive on elaborate sound worlds and fully-developed dramatic interpretations. Through narrative and non-narrative musical storytelling, she explores the subjects of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and relationships. Whether through chamber music, staged recitals, opera, or large ensemble soloist work, she emphasizes the full range of vocal sounds, timbres, colors, and uses that characterize the 21st century voice.

Megan is a prolific new music vocalist who has appeared with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, Latitude49, Great Noise Ensemble, Stone Mason Projects, Rhymes With Opera, SONAR new music, and more. She has sung with many outstanding performers including Nadia Shpachenko, Michael Hall, Gregory Oakes, Nick Zoulek, Hillary LaBonte as well as premiered the work of Mara Gibson, Griffin Candey, Garrett Schumann, Christian Carey, Alan Theisen, Anna Brake, D. Edward Davis, and more.

A gifted narrative and non-narrative musical storyteller, Megan’s performance work explores the depths of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and complex relationships. Ihnen’s interpretations of modern and contemporary repertoire have garnered growing acclaim. She is particularly recognized as an excellent recitalist. Her This World of Yes program of contemporary music for voice and saxophone with Alan Theisen explores the themes of pathways, choices, and duality through the work of contemporary composers such as Jessica Rudman, Michael Young, and Michelle McQuade Dewhirst. This World of Yes has been performed across the United States including appearances in Kansas City, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore. With performances in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Colorado Springs, and Kansas City, Ms. Ihnen has worked with violinist Martha Morrison Muehleisen and Rome Prize winner video artist Karen Yasinsky to take audiences on a profound journey through György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments through video and sound. Finally, Ihnen’s Single Words She Once Loved is a performance that centers around the ideas and effects of memory, dementia, and time. It is a deeply personal exploration of the dueling forces of ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ and ‘God gave us memories so that we may have roses in winter’. Single Words She Once Loved features compositions by David Smooke, Ryan Keebaugh, Daniel Felsenfeld, Jeffrey Mumford, and more.

Megan has enjoyed performing as part of Tuesdays @ Monk Space, Access Contemporary Music Thirsty Ears Festival, NEXTET, Ethos NewSound, 6:30 Concert Series, International U.S. Navy Saxophone Symposium, SPLICE Festival, Oh My Ears, Second Sunday Concert Series at Boston Sculptors Gallery, Winifred M. Kelley Music Series at Salisbury House, and more. She has appeared with Zeitgeist New Music, ÆPEX Contemporary Performance, Detroit New Music “Strange Beautiful Music Marathon”, Omaha Under the Radar Festival, Works and Process at the Guggenheim Series, Notes on Fiction Series at the Center for Fiction, New Music Gathering, Contemporary Undercurrent of Song Project, American Opera Theatre, Vivre Musicale, UCCS Music/Peak Frequency Creative Arts Collective, Harford Community College Sunday Afternoon Concert Series, and Silver Finch Arts Collective.

In the spring of 2017, Megan undertook a fundraising project for her first album, “Sleep Songs: Wordless Lullabies for the Sleepless.” She commissioned over 25 diverse composers from the United States and abroad to write brief, wordless lullabies for mezzo-soprano. Megan has also had recordings on Navona Records, Hoot/Wisdom Recordings, I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Fall 2015 Mixtape, and the CarpeDM Seize Des Moines “Music Mix: Volume III” which was featured at the 2016 SXSW Festival.

As a chamber musician, Megan is proud to have trained at the following summer festivals: impuls International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music, Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), Fresh Inc Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, and MusicX.

Her devotion to the proliferation of new music extends beyond the commissioning and performing of music to teaching, workshopping, and mentoring of emerging artists in the field. She also works to increase the visibility and influence of new music through writing on the subject for multiple online and print publications. As a curator, she selected twenty songs for mezzo-soprano and piano for the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music. Mezzo-Soprano, Vol. 1 includes works by: Michael Betteridge, Mark Buller, Stephen DeCesare, Douglas Fisk, Matt Frey, Jodi Goble, Ricky Ian Gordon, Cara Haxo, Cameron Lam, Cecilia Livingston, Shona Mackay, Tony Manfredonia, Nicole Murphy, Eric Pazdziora, Frances Pollock, Julia Seeholzer, Alan Thiesen, Dennis Tobenski, Moe Touizrar, and Ed Windels.

Megan was honored to receive a Phyllis Bryn-Julson Award for Commitment to and Performance of 20th/21st Century Music in 2009 and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Classical Music: Solo Performance in 2014. She was an accomplished violist and drama student before pursuing degrees in music and vocal performance from Augustana University and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Ihnen has been a board member for Baltimore Concert Opera and HOWL performing arts ensemble.

Megan is a devoted teacher who recently shepherded studios at Drake University Community School of Music, Southwestern Community College School for Music Vocations, and Graceland University before taking on communications roles at Nief-Norf, Live Music Project, and New Music USA. She has also been a resident faculty artist for the UMKC Summer Composition Workshop and the Mostly Modern Festival. In addition to UMKC, Megan has presented her popular masterclasses, workshops, and lectures a Bowling Green State University, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Music Gathering, Iowa Thespian Festival, UNCG Greensboro, and Florida Atlantic University. She was also a Visiting Artist for Louisiana State University for the 2018-2019 academic year.

In addition to being an avid podcast listener, Ihnen enjoys drinking good coffee, joking around with her sisters, tweeting about contemporary poetry, and watching Law & Order. She has grand dreams that one day her dog, Hunter, will be the best dog in the neighborhood. She lives in New Orleans, LA and out of her suitcase equally.

Cass loves singing and connecting with people, and she believes that experiencing the power of the human voice can initiate emotional catharsis, joy, transformation, inspiration, and even healing. she was fortunate to grow up in a small community where the traditions of storytelling and music-making run deep. As a child, Cass would go to ceilidhs – parties – and the live music would prompt everyone in the room to jump up and step dance or square dance, joining in the fun. Cass has kept this love of music with her as she studied classical singing and embarked on her own professional performing career. She considers herself lucky to have been influenced by this kind of musical spontaneity and interactive enjoyment from a young age. Her performing philosophy is based on these early life experiences, emphasizing personal interaction and connection, joy, and healing through sharing beautiful vocal music.

Torlef Borsting’s powerful baritone fuses with sensitivity, compassion, and lyricism to lend a musical and dramatic depth to characters such as Scarpia in Tosca, Germont in La Traviata, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, and Jack Rance in La Fanciulla del West. His is a voice ideal for the commanding presence of Verdi, the emotional swell of Puccini, the flexibility and movement of Donizetti, and the nuance of Mozart.

Other leading roles in his repertoire include Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Prince Yeletsky in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Dr. Bartolo in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Leporello in Don Giovanni and Horace Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe, where his vocal prowess was lauded by East Bay Times as having “appropriate gusto…[moving] convincingly from rowdy full-voice banter at the saloon with his pals to sotto voce crooning to Baby Doe.”

A native of Hawaii, Torlef has spent most of his time on the West Coast, performing leading and supporting roles with companies including San Francisco Opera, Opera Parallèlle, West Bay Opera, Sacramento Opera, Opera San Jose, Livermore Valley Opera, Opera San Luis Obispo, Berkeley Opera,and others. In concert, he has performed as a soloist with Pacific Chamber Symphony, Mendocino Music Festival, Oakland Symphony Chorus, Symphony Parnassus, Cantare con Vivo, and Oakland Civic Orchestra.

In 2018, Torlef made a move across the country with his family to Florida, where he now resides. He has since made company debuts with Opera Orlando, Indianapolis Opera, New York City Opera, and looks forward to his first dive into Wagner’s Ring Cycle in the summer of 2022 with Tundi Productions in Brattleboro, VT.

Torlef’s foray into classical singing happened almost by chance; a series of events and an assignment to watch Le nozze di Figaro saw him shift from being a low brass performer at the end of his undergraduate degree studies to being fully-committed toward becoming an opera singer.

As a college student, Chris assumed that winning a job in one of the world’s great orchestras came with all the standard perks (like vacations, mortgages, and college funds for his kids). So he worked hard and sacrificed free time for years and years until he won his dream job. 

And while Chris was incredibly proud and honored to play trumpet with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the high cost of living was keeping him from getting anywhere close to enjoying those perks (vacations/mortgages/college funds for his kids).

Now, the high cost of living wasn’t Chris’s only problem. You see, Chris didn’t get into the LA Phil by being a natural trumpet-playing genius. Chris got into the LA Phil by being a very good musician who was a genius strategizer.

Over the decades, Chris was strategic about improving his trumpet-playing flaws. He was strategic about his career challenges. He was strategic about his audition difficulties. Chris had faced the music about his shortcomings so many times, they gave up and went home.

And once Chris won his big job, his skill for strategy had no outlet. Sure, there was a lot of new music to learn (the LA Phil plays a LOT of world premieres), but there were no big problems to solve. No challenges to address. And still no vacations/mortgages/college funds.

This was a puzzle—the students he worked with weren’t a great match for his teaching. The people who really needed him were too far away. By the time these students paid for plane tickets and hotel rooms, Chris couldn’t bring himself to charge much for their actual lessons. 

There was a lot of frustration, a lot of time wasted, a lot of money spent, and not much income earned.

In 2017, Chris got the idea to create a website that could reach anyone, anywhere. He hired a graphic designer, a website developer, and bought a lot of video equipment. 

Chris spent a lot of time on this new idea. He also spent a lot of money. So much money.

When he finally launched his first course, it looked professional. The information was good. The price was a value. So how did people respond? They didn’t. You could hear the crickets.

He kept talking to this coach and he started implementing some of her suggestions. Almost immediately, his ideas got more traction. He reached more people. He earned more money. He was having fun and his new clients seemed thrilled. 

Chris was truly shocked at the year that followed. His talent for facing the music brought him immense enjoyment and the perks of vacations/mortgages/college funds for kids for the first time.

When the pandemic hit, Chris’s strategizing became a lifeline for him and for his clients. While so many musicians were sitting around, wondering when the world would go back to normal, Chris’s clients were striking out into the future, creating new methods of reaching their audience and generating income.