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Janis Hardy has sung leading roles for many American opera companies, including the Houston Grand Opera, Boston Opera and Minnesota Opera, where she created roles in ten world premieres. She has been a featured soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, Hugh Wolf and others; with the Minnesota Orchestra under Klaus Tennestedt, Neville Marriner, Edo de Waart and others. She has been a frequent soloist with VocalEssence and A Prairie Home Companion and has appeared on stage with Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Frank Theater, The Children's Theater Company and Theater Latte Da. She is Associate Professor of Voice at St. Olaf College, where she co-directs the Lyric Theater program. She will be appearing at the Southern Theater this August with Sopranorama VI with Maria Jette, Molly Sue McDonald and Dan Chouinard.
Tenor Dan Dressen has been a frequent performer with Minnesota Opera, including roles in La Traviata, The Rake’s Progress, Der Rosenkavalier, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the American premieres of Poul Ruder’s A Handmaid’s Tale and Ricky Ian Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath. Other dramatic appearances include Washington Opera (in the premiere production of Argento's Dream of Valentino), Cleveland Lyric Opera, Northstar Opera and Nautilus Music Theater. In the concert arena he has performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Chorale and Dale Warland Singers, and for more than twenty-nine seasons with VocalEssence. His recordings include Copland’s The Tender Land, and Britten’s opera Paul Bunyan and The Company of Heaven, all with Virgin Records. He is currently a professor of music and department chair at St. Olaf Collegein Northfield, Minnesota.
Peter Halverson, in addition to many performances with the Minnesota Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Skylark Opera and VocalEssence, has sung throughout the United States including appearances at the Kennedy Center Mozart Festival, Oregon Bach Festival and the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival. He recently sang in the world premier of The Grapes of Wrath with Minnesota Opera and as winner of the 3rd International Yrjö Kilpinen Art Song Competition will present a concert tour to Finland this fall. Mr. Halverson recently released his first solo CD, American Portrait, and will be featured along with Norah Long on Skylark Opera’s soon to be released Sweethearts of Song: The Film Music of Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy. Mr. Halverson is an Associate Professor of Music at Concordia College, Moorhead, MN.
Pianist Sonja Thompson is active as a performer, educator and coach. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she has appeared locally and nationally in a wide variety of performance settings with both singers and instrumentalists. In addition to performing, Ms. Thompson is Assistant Professor of Music at Augsburg College, Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota, and is Assistant Music Director at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.
Timothy Lovelace heads the Collaborative Piano program at the University of Minnesota. His principal studies were with Gilbert Kalish, Donna Loewy, and Frank Weinstock. Active as a solo and ensemble pianist, Lovelace has appeared with such distinguished artists as Miriam Fried, Joe Lovano, Robert Mann, Charles Neidich, and Paquito D’Rivera. For more than a decade, Lovelace has been a staff pianist at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, where he has played in the classes of Barbara Bonney, Thomas Hampson, and Yo-Yo Ma, among others. Lovelace's performing schedule regularly takes him across the country. After his 2005 Weill Hall appearance, New York Concert Review Inc. surmised Lovelace “must surely be in demand”. An advocate for new music, Lovelace has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov and others. He has CDs on the Boston Records and Albany labels.
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