Performer Development Weekend
Friday, September 18th — Sunday, September 20th
RDO is excited to offer a weekend of performance development workshops from the teachers and practitioners listed below. The workshops will include:
-
Seasoned singer master class
-
Audition workshop and Mock audition master class
-
Private aria coaching
-
Movement warmups
-
Alexander Technique
-
Feldenkrais Method
-
Balk Performance Techniques
-
Goldovsky approach to acting for singers
Friday, September 18, 7:00 – 9:30
Saturday, September 19, 5:30 – 9:30
Sunday, September 20, 1:30 – 5:30 and 7:00 – 9:30
(exact times are subject to change)
Gary Briggle
Balk Performance Techniques
Audition workshop and Mock audition master class
Gary Briggle worked with artistic director Wesley Balk at the Minnesota Opera for over a decade and has taught at the Wesley Balk Institute several summers. He was head of the opera department at the University of Iowa, co-chaired the music-theatre department at SPCPA, and served as artistic director of Skylark Opera Theatre and Lyric Opera Cleveland. As a stage director, Gary has worked with regional companies including Dayton Opera, Sacramento Opera, Nevada Opera, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Lyric Opera of the North, and in academia at B.U.'s Opera Institute, Concordia College, Macalester College, University of St. Catherine, University of Minnesota, and at his alma mater, St. Olaf College. He continues an active performing career and is executive director of Raison d’Être Opéra.
Barbara Brooks
Collaborative pianist, David Jones Master Classes
Barbara is an active vocal coach and music director in the Twin Cities area. She has worked with various opera companies including Canadian Opera, Minnesota Opera, New Orleans Opera, Opera Banff, Berkshire Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Kentucky Opera, as well as the University of Minnesota Opera and University of North Texas Opera programs. She has served as a vocal coach for the Minnesota Opera's Resident Artist program and on the music staff of the Wesley Balk Institute. She also serves as Artistic Director of the Minnesota-based chamber choir Woven Voices and has collaborated as music director in the highly imaginative productions of Mozart's operas at Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis. She holds a master's degree in piano performance from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Marilyn Habermas-Scher
Movement warmups
Marilyn Habermas-Scher has been researching the relationships between voice, movement, and human experience since the 1970s when she danced in The Nancy Hauser Dance Company. She brings 50 years of training in Body-Mind Centering™, meditation, yoga, Alexander Technique, T’ai Chi Chuan, and Qi Gong to her teaching; her most recent interest is Gyrotonics. Her performance work has ranged from choreography to opera to storytelling. She has taught at Guthrie Theater, The Loft, The Minneapolis College of Art and Design, University of Minnesota Graduate Theater Department, and Metropolitan State University. Marilyn has maintained a private practice in VoiceWork (somatically-based voice training) since 1978. She volunteered at Pathways for 30 years offering Voice Healings, as well as working as an inter-faith staff chaplain at University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview.
Beth Hartman
Feldenkrais Method
Beth Hartman is an active musician and experienced educator. She has been teaching and performing professionally for over 25 years. She first came to the Feldenkrais Method of movement education through a desire to sing with more physical ease, comfort, and enjoyment, and then she decided to become a certified Feldenkrais Practitioner herself. Beth also has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, a master’s degree in historical musicology, and a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance, and she currently teaches introductory writing courses at the University of Minnesota. When she is not busy teaching, you can catch her singing and playing a tiny organ in the Americana band The Gated Community.
Sahar Hassan
Alexander Technique
Egyptian American mezzo-soprano Sahar Hassan is the artistic director of Ladyslipper Ensemble. She has sung with An Opera Theatre, Journey North Opera, Bold North Baroque Opera, Imaginality Opera, and Minnesota Opera. Sahar is a recipient of grants from MRAC and the McKnight Foundation, MSAB, and the Richard Wagner Society of the Upper Midwest. Her CD, The World’s Highway, was released on the Centaur label, thanks to an Artist Initiative Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has served on the voice faculties of New England Conservatory’s Preparatory and Continuing Education, Salve Regina University, and McNally Smith College of Music. Sahar is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and serves as assistant faculty at Minnesota Center for the Alexander Technique.
saharhassan.com
Karen Huffstodt
Goldovsky approach to acting for singers
Audition workshop and Mock audition master class
Karen Huffstodt, soprano and pedagogue, has enjoyed a distinguished career in diverse repertoire, encompassing the leading roles of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Strauss. Her performances have consistently been characterized by great intensity, extraordinary stage presence, and a voice that embodies the dramatic heroines she portrays. She has graced the stages of The Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Vienna Staatsoper, Opera National de Paris (Bastille), the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Over the past decade, she has dedicated herself to mentoring artists who share her passion, bringing their musical characterizations from studio to stage and allowing their most authentic selves to shine through. Her masterclasses and private coachings explore this "missing link,” helping singers manifest the credibility, panache, and presence to make each performance memorable.
Alan Johnson
Private aria coachings
Collaborative pianist, Audition workshop and Mock audition master class
Alan Johnson is widely recognized in direction, performance, and higher education. As conductor and pianist, he has prepared, premiered, and performed a multitude of progressive works at the frontiers of opera, theater, dance, and song by acclaimed composers and artists of all generations.
From 2009-2022, Alan served as Music Director at the John Duffy Institute for New Opera at the Virginia Arts Festival. Collaborating with Founding Director John Duffy, Artistic Director Libby Larson, and Stage Director Rhoda Levine, Alan prepared and led works-in-progress by more than sixty composer fellows in staged workshops and performances. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami where he was Program/Music Director/Conductor of the Frost Opera Theater and Vocal Coach in the Department of Vocal Performance from 2006-2025.
He is forever indebted to early guidance and mentorship from John Wustman and Ivan Davis.
David Jones
Vocal technique master class for the seasoned singer
David Jones began his academic journey began at Texas Christian University and continued with graduate work at the University of North Texas. His extensive research also took him to Groningen University Hospital in the Netherlands and Le Laboratoire de la Voix in Paris. These provided him with valuable insight into the therapeutic potential of Old World concepts in treating voice disorders. Jones had the privilege of studying under esteemed pedagogue Allan Lindquest; through him and others, Jones acquired the foundational concepts of the Swedish-Italian School.
Jones’s expertise has been instrumental in training singers who have performed in opera houses worldwide. He dedicates himself to sharing information with teachers through seminars, articles, and instruction, having been published in European NATS and Classical Singers Magazine, and his own book titled A Modern Guide to Old World Singing: Concepts of the Italian and Swedish-Italian Singing Schools.
Jared Mikach
Private aria coachings
Collaborative pianist, Audition workshop and Mock audition master class
Jared Mikach is a Mexican American collaborative pianist and educator in the Twin Cities, passionate about exploring identity and culture through music making. He earned a B.A. in Music from St. Olaf College, and a master’s degree in Collaborative Piano and Coaching at the University of Minnesota. Jared's experience spans various opera and musical theater productions where he has worked as a pianist, assistant music director, coach, and repetiteur. As a freelance pianist, Jared has collaborated with organizations including Border CrosSing, Heritage Choir, Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, Schubert Club, Source Song Festival, OOPS MN, Mississippi Valley Orchestra, Skylark Opera Theatre, AOT, and Journey North Opera Company. Jared strives to bring a holistic approach to every facet of his art making, creating spaces that foster sustainability in the arts.