After pursuing studies at the Hartt and Manhattan Schools of Music on full scholarship, Rakefet Hak apprenticed as coach/pianist with the Merola Opera Program. She then joined the Lindeman Young Artist Development Program and the Metropolitan Opera music staff as one of its youngest members where she worked as assistant conductor and coach with Maestros James Levine, Jun Märkl, Sebastian Weigl, Plácido Domingo, Bruno Campanella, Carlo Rizzi, Patrick Summers, Edo de Waart, and Julius Rudel, among others.

In 2000 she was invited by Plácido Domingo to join Los Angeles Opera’s music staff, where she worked with Maestros Plácido Domingo, Kent Nagano, John DeMain, Richard Armstrong, Roderick Brydon and others. She also traveled with the company to the Savonlinna Music Festival in Finland. In addition, she served as Music Director with LA Opera Connects on various productions.

Ms. Hak has been in demand as coach/rehearsal pianist both nationally and internationally in companies such as Seattle Opera, Spoleto Festival, Pine Mountain Music Festival, Ojai Music Festival, The New Israeli Opera, Semperoper Dresden, and Ruhrtriennale Festival of the Arts.

As an accompanist she collaborated on recitals with Bryn Terfel, Alexandra Deshorties, Michelle DeYoung, Mariusz Kwiecień, Sondra Radvanovsky and Alfred Walker in venues such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, Merkin Concert Hall, Lincoln Theater of Miami, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Sala Teatro La Fenice.

Adding to her extensive experience as an international coach and pianist, Ms. Hak has recently begun a new chapter in her successful career as a conductor. To date, she has conducted various productions and scenes under her capacity as Music Director of UCLA Opera Studio, a position she’s held since 2004. She also assistant conducted masterclasses and concerts in Germany and the Czech Republic and served as assistant conductor to Mo. Steven Sloane on productions of Tosca and Falstaff with the Malmö Opera company in Sweden. Last Summer, she served as Music Director for Long Beach Opera in their new innovative production of “The Recital,” in which film festival meets live performance.

Increasingly sought-after as a musical partner, pianist/coach Sky Lee is rapidly building a reputation as one of the most versatile and active collaborators in a wide range of opera, vocal, choral, orchestral, and instrumental music.

Ms. Lee notably has worked with Long Beach Opera, Aspen Music Festival and School, The Opera Buffs, New Opera West, Indianapolis Opera, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Musiktheater Bavaria, USC Thornton Opera, Opera UCLA, Long Beach Camerata Singers, Queens College Opera (CUNY), Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island in NY and National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Indiana University String Academy and Indiana University CAP (College Audition Preparation) Program. Ms. Lee has worked with many acclaimed artists and distinguished pedagogues such as Renée Fleming, Sumi Jo, Betsy Bishop, Elizabeth Hynes, Carol Vaness, Rod Gilfry, Stephen King, Kevin Short, Mimi Zweig, Brenda Brenner, maestro Pierre Vallet, Jo-Michael Scheibe, James Bass, Brent McMunn, Rakefet Hak, Myra Huang and Cameron Stowe. Besides the vocal works, she recently published the Women’s Work album with hornist Kristy Morrell, a Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s principal member and an Associate Professor at Baylor University.

A prizewinner of the NSAL (National Society of Arts and Letters) Instrumental Music Competition and American Protégé Instrumental Competition of Romantic Music, Ms. Lee has performed throughout the United States, Germany, Italy, Austria, Prague, and her home country, South Korea. She studied Keyboard Collaborative Arts at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music under the tutelage of Alan L. Smith and solo Piano Performance with Karen Shaw at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Currently, Sky resides in Los Angeles with her family, and she serves as vocal coach/staff accompanist at Santa Monica College, and as staff pianist at USC Thornton School of Music, Opera UCLA, and World Mission University.

Kevin Cornwell II is a first-year graduate student in Choral Conducting at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with Dr. James K. Bass. Before arriving at UCLA, Kevin served with Julian Goods as Co-Interem Choral Director at the Detroit School of Arts in Detroit, Michigan. As a conductor, Kevin has served as the Assistant Conductor with his mentor, Dr. Michael A. Mitchell, to the Oakland University Chorus and Chorale, where he received his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Music Education. He also was a finalist for the state (Michigan) and the National American Choral Directors Association Conducting Undergraduate Masterclass in 2023. Kevin has worked with renowned composers Stacey V. Gibbs and Tom Cipullo and sung under the direction of Dr. Z. Randall Stroope, Dr. Allen Hightower, and Dr. Eugene Rogers.

Kevin enjoys a multifaceted music career as a Film Score Composer, Arranger, and Musician outside Choral Music. As a Film Score Composer, Kevin has composed music for the 2021 Short film Pharmocosm, which won best short- film at the Hollywood Blood Horror Festival and an honorable mention at the Lift-Off Global Network first-time filmmakers showcase. As a Musician, Kevin plays multiple instruments in multiple genres. Kevin has played for R&B/Hip-Hop and Pop artists such as Rockim Williamson and is the current keyboard player for Racquel Soledad and Team Sol.

Kevin attributes much of his musical inspiration to his father, Kevin Cornwell Sr., his High School Choir director, who helped shape him and instilled many of his core values at a young age.

Peter Kazaras is the Director of Opera UCLA and was the Inaugural Susan G. and Michel D. Covel MD Chair at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music from 2016 to 2021. A stage director and Professor of Music, he was also Artistic Director of the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program from 2006 to 2013. Earlier in his career, he received worldwide acclaim as an operatic tenor, performing at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, and Vienna State Opera, among many others.

Since starting at UCLA in 2007, he has directed, supervised, or produced over 40 productions. Recent initiatives have included productions of three world premieres of operas by women composers with women librettists. The first two were Lost Childhood, by Jan Hamer and Mary Azrael, based on the memoir by Yehuda Nir (Spring 2019); and Juana (based on the life of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz) with music by Carla Lucero and a libretto by UCLA Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba (Fall 2019, directed by Sara Widzer). In Spring 2023, Opera UCLA produced Quake (a modern retelling of the Odyssey with an LA twist) by UCLA Professor of Composition Kay Rhie and Amanda Hollander. Professor Kazaras looks forward to producing and directing the world premiere performances of Richard Danielpour’s new opera The Grand Hotel Tartarus in Spring 2024.

In addition to his work at UCLA, Kazaras recently directed La bohème for Los Angeles Opera, The Dallas Opera, and Washington National Opera; Cendrillon for The Juilliard School; The Rape of Lucretia, a double-bill of Gianni Schicchi/The Medium, and a triple bill of La serva padrona/Savitri/The Bear for the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera; the world première of a revised version of An American Tragedy and a new production of Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie for The Glimmerglass Festival. For Seattle Opera, he also was responsible for The Consul as well as the world premiere productions of Jack Perla and Jessica Murphy Moo’s An American Dream, an opera based on real life narratives concerning the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese-American nationals during World War II.

Over the past few seasons, Professor Kazaras has directed Samson and Delilah, The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro (Washington National Opera); The Ghosts of Versailles (Chautauqua Opera); A Quiet Place (Tanglewood Festival Leonard Bernstein Centennial); The Turn of the Screw and The Marriage of Figaro (Seattle Opera); and Korngold’s first opera, The Ring of Polykrates (The Dallas Opera). He also directed a production of Eugene Onegin for Music Academy of the West in 2022, in celebration of both the 75th anniversary of the founding of that institution as well as a return to live operatic performance post-pandemic. He has also given master classes for the Washington National Opera Young Artists as Artist-in-Residence, and also for Young Artists at Glimmerglass Festival.

Of a production of Norma with the Seattle Opera, The Seattle Times said “his direction was remarkably good, theatrical and natural at the same time.” Likewise, of a production of Le nozze di Figaro for the Seattle Opera Young Artist program, he was praised for his “robust and lively” direction and his “clever, fast-paced staging” with reviewers noting that “Staging [Le nozze di Figaro] is a considerable challenge, one to which Kazaras adroitly rises. A dozen sly little gestures quickly establish character — and you can see every one of those gestures in the intimate ambience of the theater.” Of a recent production of the same opera in a different production at Seattle, a reviewer noted “…the keenness of desire that courses through director Peter Kazaras’ staging — not just in the erotic sense, though that abounds, but a desire to grasp for meaning, for some sort of reassurance amid the bafflement.”

Over the past fifteen years, he directed over twenty productions for Seattle Opera’s main stage and Young Artists Program, plus productions for Opera Cleveland, Madison Opera, Eos Orchestra, Red: {an Orchestra}, the Santa Fe Pro Musica, and festivals at Cabrillo and Caramoor. He directed for educational programs such as Merola at San Francisco Opera Center, the Wolf Trap summer program, the Chautauqua Institute Voice Department, the Academy of Vocal Arts, the Hartt College of Music, and Florida State University.

A frequent panelist on the Toll Brothers Metropolitan Opera Quiz, Professor Kazaras is also in demand as a judge for international competitions. He has adjudicated all three iterations of the International Wagner Competition at Seattle Opera. He was a judge for the first Elardo International Competition in New York, Marilyn Horne’s competition at Music Academy of the West, the José Iturbi Voice Competition at UCLA, the Les Azuriales Festival in Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat in France, and has adjudicated twice at The Juilliard School and as well as for the Corbett Opera Competition at CCM, at the National Opera Association competition, and at the Washington International Competition of the Friday Morning Music Club in Washington DC. He has also served as a judge for District and Regional Auditions of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. In the summer of 2015, he returned to Les Azuriales Festival as a Master Teacher. In 2016 he taught in Busseto Italy at Aprile Millo’s Operavision Academy. He has been invited to give Master Classes at USC, at Les Azuriales Festival, and has offered audition feedback for advanced participants at Songfest LA. He was the honoree at the 2017 Viennese Luncheon of the Loren L. Zachary Society for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

Professor Kazaras is a member of the Glimmerglass Festival Artistic Advisory Board as well as the New York Festival of Song Advisory Board. He maintains an active commitment to the fostering of new operatic work.

Lucy Tucker Yates

Cheryl Lin Fielding

Wendy Caldwell

John-Micah Braswell

Milena Gligic

Baritone Dominic Delzompo is a 2016 alumnus of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he studied with Juliana Gondek. In the 2022-2023 season, he debuted roles in world premiere performances of two operas: Arkady Druganin in the concert world premiere of Arkhipov (October 2022), and Gorgon in the stage premiere of Quake (June 2023). In July of 2023, he sang in the chorus of Verdi’s Requiem under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. In August of 2023, he flew to Houston for the premiere of a 20 minute song cycle he composed about our relationships to technology and social media; the songs were commissioned by Federico De Michelis, and performed by De Michelis and Kirill Kuzmin during the inaugural performance of The New Song Project. He has sung with the Los Angeles Master Chorale for two recent engagements; “Heaven & Earth” in October 2023, which featured the music of Reena Esmail and Philip Glass, and the LA Philharmonic’s performances of Karawane and Daphnis et Chloe in December 2023. He is a staff member of the choir at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Los Angeles. In prior concert seasons, Dominic has sung onstage at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Hollywood Bowl, Pauley Pavilion, and as a soloist at the Rose Bowl (and other venues). You can find him on the internet.

Sue Karutz (Stage Manager) toured with the Robert Wilson/Tom Waits/William S. Burroughs project The Black Rider (London, San Francisco, Sydney, Los Angeles), Wicked (Chicago, LA, San Francisco), Les Misérables (more than 100 cities across the U.S., Canada, China and Korea) Miss Saigon, and Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo (Russia and Belgium). Other favorite projects have been Lookingglass Theatre Company’s Moby Dick, The National Theatre’s An Inspector Calls, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s One Man, Two Guvnors, and South Coast Repertory’s Once. Elsewhere, Sue has been part of stage management teams at La Jolla Playhouse, The National Theatre of the Deaf, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Falcon Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Los Angeles Opera, the Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas theaters, Deaf West, Alpine Theatre Project, Laguna Playhouse, and Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Ysabel is a freelance costume designer and Local 705 costumer based in Hollywood. She is an alum of the UCLA school of Theater, Film, and Television.

Kéelin is a Los Angeles native and Local 705 costumer, living and working in Hollywood.

Benedict Conran is an LA-based Lighting and XR designer with a particular interest in immersive theater and new works. He is a practiced 3D render artist, draftsperson, and lighting programmer.