Joy H. Calico joined the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in August 2023 as Professor of Musicology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Musicology Department. A scholar of Cold War cultural politics and contemporary opera, she has published two monographs with the University of California Press (Brecht at the Opera and Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw in Postwar Europe) and has a third under contract there, which is a theory of scene type for analyzing opera since Salome.  She is currently co-editor, with Justin Vickers, of a volume on Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 for OUP. In recent years she has published on operas by Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth, and Helmut Lachenmann, and work on Chaya Czernowin is forthcoming. Calico is former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and a current member of the international working team of the Black Opera Research Network. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the ACLS, the American Academy in Berlin, the Howard Foundation, the NEH, the Paul Sacher Stiftung, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among others.

LA based improviser, composer, and dynamic soprano, Kathryn Shuman, performs actively in studio and on stage as a soloist and ensemble singer. She is known for “her beautiful, clear tone, and excellent attention to detail” (Meredith Monk,) which can be heard on films, including: Mulan, Haunted Mansion, and Minions: Rise of the Guru. As a soloist, she has performed classic repertoire, including the Carmina Burana soprano solos, J.S. Bach’s Jauchzet and several cantatas, though she is most often realizing new works. Shuman has premiered opera and works by Juhi Bansal, and performed works of Veronika Krausas, Meredith Monk, Kaija Saariaho, John Cage, Eric Pham, and Steve Reich. Kathryn composes and produces experimental vocal music for Splice, and has had work commissioned for installation, and live performance by Luminex 2.0 and Wild Up orchestra. Shuman’s latest work explores memory, questioning, embodied & expanded vocalization, and collaboration with environment. She has performed her work at venues and festivals in California, New York, Ontario, Canada, and Berlin, Germany. Shuman is a dedicated music theory and voice faculty member at Pasadena City College and Riverside City College.

www.kathryn-shuman.com

Milena Gligic is a Los Angeles based pianist and vocalist originally from Belgrade, Serbia. She is often on music staff for productions with the LA Philharmonic and Pacific Opera Project. She also worked with the LA Opera, The Industry Opera and with Beth Morrison Projects and prepared numerous shows with artists such as Gustavo Dudamel, James Conlon, Placido Domingo, Yuval Sharon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Adès, etc. Specialized in working with singers on vocal repertoire in many different languages, she is a vocal coach at CalArts University and at UCLA. Milena has performed with major professional choirs in the US: the LA Master Chorale, Washington Bach Consort and Collegiate Chorale in NYC. Well-versed in new and experimental music, she is a core member of the Contemporaneous ensemble. Her singing background is versatile as she studied and performed in many styles: operatic, jazz, pop and Balkan ethno. She has a Doctorate in Collaborative Piano from the University of Maryland.