After pursuing studies at the Hartt and Manhattan Schools of Music on full scholarship, Ms. 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 and the first Israeli in history to do so. During her tenure at the Met, 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 the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Spoleto Festival, Pine Mountain Music Festival, Ojai Music Festival, The New Israeli Opera, Semperoper Dresden, and Ruhrtriennale Festival of the Arts in Germany. As a coach, she’s worked with such notable singers as Renée Fleming, Plácido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli. Joyce DiDonato, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Simon Keenleyside, Suzanne Mentzer, Kurt Moll, Patricia Racette, Carol Vaness, Deborah Voigt, among others.
As a pianist, 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 in St. Paul, Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Merkin Concert Hall, Lincoln Theater of Miami, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Sala Teatro La Fenice, New York’s Town Hall, the Tilles Center of Long Island.
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. Under her capacity as Music Director of Opera UCLA, a position she’s been serving in since 2004, she’s conducted various productions and scenes, including most recently a world-premiere of the opera Quake by Kay Rhie and a production of L’elisir d’amore. 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. This Summer, she will make her Long Beach Opera debut as Music Director for their new innovative production of “The Recital,” in which film festival meets live performance.
