Daron Hagen
Daron Hagen is a full-time composer of opera and concert music. All eight of his major operas are currently in production or revival somewhere in the U.S., Europe or Asia. His work has been commissioned and performed by most of North America's major musical institutions, and numerous institutions abroad, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Seattle Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Curtis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Swan (U.K.), Seattle Opera and Opera Theater of Ireland. Among other honors, he has received the Guggenheim Fellowship, Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize, two Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowships, and the Seattle Opera Chairman's Award. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, he has taught at Bard College, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Princeton Atelier, and fulfilled numerous composer-in-residencies around the U.S. He is a lifetime member of the Corporation of Yaddo, former president of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation and a trustee of the Douglas Moore Fund for American Opera. His music can be heard on the Albany, Arsis, Bridge, Clarion, Klavier, Naxos and New World/CRI labels, among others. A complete list of his works may be found on his website: http://www.daronhagen.com.

Gardner McFall
Gardner McFall is the author of two books of poems, two children's books and an opera libretto for Daron Hagen's Amelia (story by Stephen Wadsworth), commissioned and premiered at Seattle Opera in 2010. The libretto, with an introduction by Speight Jenkins, was published by the University of Washington Press. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, Southwest Review, The New Yorker and other publications.

Robert Orth
Robert Orth, according to Opera News, is “that fixture of contemporary opera.” He has sung Hagen's Shining Brow, Adams's Nixon in China, Wallace's Harvey Milk, Hoiby's Summer and Smoke, Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author, Argento's The Aspern Papers and A Waterbird Talk, Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath, Musto’s The Inspector, Previn’s Brief Encounter, and three operas by Jake Heggie: Dead Man Walking, The End of the Affair and Moby-Dick.

Thomas Bagwell
Thomas Bagwell’s appearances as a collaborative pianist have taken him to such venues as New York's Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein, the Concertgebouw and numerous concert halls across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Japan. His activities as a coach and teacher have led to invitations to give master classes for colleges and apprentice programs in opera companies. He was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera for nine seasons, and has served in the same capacity for many seasons at the Washington National Opera, The Santa Fe Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Bagwell has partnered in recital with singers including Marilyn Horne, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Denyce Graves, Frederica von Stade, Andrea Rost, Kristine Jepson, James Morris, Roberta Peters and Lucine Amara. His recital collaborations with the rising generation of singers include Elaine Alvarez, Eric Cutler, Gregory Turay, Rinat Shaham, Thomas Meglioranza and Jesse Blumberg. In the field of chamber music, Bagwell has been a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival and has performed recitals with violinists Midori, Miranda Cuckson and Scott St. John, with whom he made a critically acclaimed CD of works by Antonin Dvorak on the Marquis Classics label. He has received degrees from the Mannes College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and has studied with Warren Jones, Graham Johnson and Edna Golandsky.