Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 8 - The Listeners

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 32 GEMMA NHA JESS Previously at Lyric: Barbarina/ Le nozze di Figaro and Page/ Rigoletto (both 2024/25). The Korean-Australian soprano and first-year Ryan Opera Center member was a national semi-finalist for the 2024 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and a winner in the 2024 Gerda Lissner Foundation Vocal Competition. In the 2022/23 Season, Nha made her house and role debut as Barbarina/ Le nozze di Figaro at Volksoper Wien. Last spring, Nha received her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she was a Toulmin Scholar and recipient of the Kovner Fellowship. Roles there included Ruth Baldwin/John Musto and Mark Campbell’s Later the Same Evening and Flerida/Cavalli’s Erismena . Other operatic credits include Zerlina/ Don Giovanni and Esmeralda/ Die verkaufte Brau t with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she completed undergraduate studies. In concert, Nha has sung Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Messiah , and she performed with Patti LuPone on her 2018 Don’t Monkey with Broadway tour at the Sydney Opera House. Gemma Nha is sponsored by Lead Sponsor Peter Scheuermann and cosponsors Drs. George Dunea and Sally Metzler-Dunea. SOPHIA MAEKAWA LEE ANN Previously at Lyric: Tisbe/ Cinderella and Shepherdess/ Jen ˚ufa (both 2023/24). The second-year Ryan Opera Center mezzo- soprano from Kyoto, Japan was a 2024 Renée Fleming Artist at the Aspen Music Festival, performing Cherubino/ Le nozze di Figaro , a 2022 Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist, understudying Rosina/ Il barbiere di Siviglia and Comrade Chin and Shu Fang/ M. Butterfly , and a 2021 Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. She recently received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. While there, she performed in Ariodante (title role), Albert Herring , and L’enfant et les sortilèges . Other roles in her repertoire include Hermia/ A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Annio/ La clemenza di Tito , Mercédès/ Carmen , Second Woman/ Dido and Aeneas , and Mrs. Nolan/ The Medium . Concert appearances include the Wichita Symphony and Curtis Symphony Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Recipient of a 2024 American Opera Society of Chicago Scholarship Award, Maekawa was selected to participate in the 2024 Wigmore Hall/ Bollinger International Song Competition. Previously, she was a semi-finalist in the 2021 Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCollum Competition. In the summer of 2025, she will perform at Wolf Trap Opera as a Filene Artist. Sophia Maekawa is sponsored by Lead Sponsors Mark and Gale Kozloff and cosponsors David & Janet Fox and Richard W. Shepro & Lindsay E. Roberts. FINN SAGAL A POLICEMAN Lyric debut The first-year Ryan Opera Center baritone from La Cañada Flintridge, California, has performed at Lincoln Center, 54 Below, and the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas with such luminaries as Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein, and Kristin Chenoweth. Sagal participated in the 2023 Merola Opera Program and the 2022 Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS Program, where he returns in 2025 as a Fleming Fellowship Artist to sing Guglielmo /Così fan tutte . He recently received a master’s degree at the Yale School of Music, where he performed the roles of Junius/ The Rape of Lucretia , the Tutor/ Le Comte Ory , and Nick Shadow/ The Rake’s Progress . He holds an undergraduate degree in vocal performance from UCLA. While there, he appeared as Pluton/Charpentier’s La descente d’Orpheìe aux enfers , and the title role/ Le nozze di Figaro . Sagal was the winner of the 2017 Songbook Academy Competition, and he received third prize at 2024 Neue Stimmen Competition in Gütersloh, Germany. Finn Sagal’s performance as A Policeman is generously sponsored by the Bill and Orli Staley Foundation. Finn Sagal is sponsored by Lead Sponsor the Estate of Lois Siegel and cosponsors Patricia A.Kenney & Gregory J.O’Leary and Jennifer Malpass. RACHEL HARRIS DANCER Lyric debut The New York-based dancer, choreographer, and director graduated from the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, where she performed the works of William Forsythe, Crystal Pite, Paul Taylor, Jiˇrí Kylián, Barak Marshall, d. Sabela Grimes, George Balanchine, and more. Performance credits include Parsons Dance, Metropolitan Opera, NVA and Guests, Traverse City Dance Project, and Life and Trust Emursive Productions, where she worked with Rena Butler, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Chanel de Silva, Stephanie Batten Bland, Rickey Tripp, Jakevis Thomason, Robert Battle, Jennifer Lott, Nicole Von Arx, David Parsons, Rick and Jeff Kuperman, and Matthew Neenan. Harris’s choreography work has been commissioned by The Kennedy Center, Howard University, Traverse City Dance Project, and International Association of Blacks in Dance. She was a Bessie Award Nominee for Outstanding Performer, Howard University’s Emerging Choreographer to Watch, and a Gibney Dance Converge2Emerge Film Grant Recipient. MORGAN REED MCDANIEL DANCER Previously at Lyric: Five productions since 2022/23, most recently Jen ˚ufa and Champion (both 2023/24). The dancer graduated from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program, where she worked with esteemed choreographers including