VOICE TEACHERS
Dr. Julia Broxholm - Soprano Julia Broxholm is first year faculty member of Seagle Music Colony. She is a highly regarded recital soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and educator. She is a founding member of SATB, a vocal quartet specializing in vocal chamber music of the 19th and 20th centuries. Recordings include two releases with SATB; Magic, and It's a Grand Night....Four Singing. She also has recorded two CD's of soprano, clarinet repertoire with clarinetist Fred Ormand and pianist Martin Katz. She received her D.M.A from the University of Michigan School of Music, and has been an active performer and teacher for over twenty-five years. Her operatic roles include Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff, the title role in Floyd's Susannah, Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale and Musetta in Puccini's La Boheme. Former students are leading players on stages on Broadway, in Las Vegas, in national touring companies, and in Europe. Dr. Broxholm joined the Music and Dance Department faculty at the University of Kansas in the fall of 2005.
Stephen Lusmann - Stephen Lusmann has enjoyed a successful international career singing leading baritone roles with major opera houses, including the Oper de Stadt Bonn, Opera de Monte Carlo, Stadttheater Luzern, Washington National Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Boston Lyric Opera and Glimmerglass Opera among many others. As an active concert soloist, he has performed at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and with numerous symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad. On recording, Mr. Lusmann may be heard in Richard Strauss' Der Friedenstag on the Koch International label, Operngala on Tonstudio AMOS, and on E. E. Cummings: An American Circus, songs of Logan Skelton on the Centaur Records label. He is Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Michigan. His students are having great success performing professionally in opera, concert, musical theater, and young artist programs throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. They are also winning prestigious vocal competitions and are members of university voice faculties. He has been a member of the Seagle Music Colony faculty for seven years.
Dr. Craig Maddox - Dr. Craig Maddox, lyric baritone, is a third year Seagle Music Colony faculty member. He joined the Stetson University School of Music voice faculty in 1984. He holds a BM in Voice Performance from the North Carolina School of the Arts, an MM in Voice Performance, an MM in Opera Directing, and a DM in Voice Performance from Florida State University. Dr. Maddox has appeared with such opera companies as Orlando Opera, Shreveport Opera and Mobile Opera. He also has experience in musical theatre, having performed leading roles in such shows as Brigadoon and Carousel. Dr. Maddox's academic passions include establishing Stetson's Hollis Voice Laboratory and expanding its Vocal Pedagogy program. A 26-year NATS member, he has served two terms as Florida NATS Governor. Former Maddox students are singing with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Ft. Worth Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Utah Opera and others. His students have won a number of major competitions since 2001, including: Met Auditions Grand Finals, Regionals and Districts; George London Foundation; Gerda Lissner Foundation, Liederkranz Foundation; Puccini Foundation; National Opera Association; Palm Beach Opera; Artist Series of Sarasota; and others.
COACH/ACCOMPANISTS
Tyson Deaton - Based in New York, Tyson Deaton has gained attention as one of the busiest young collaborative artists and coaches of opera and recital literature of this generation. He is sought out by singers and instrumentalists alike who represent some of the best talents of today. Most recently, he appeared in a recital with both singers and instrumentalists from the Metropolitan Opera. A former faculty member of the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, Mr. Deaton's various appointments have yielded productions garnering critical acclaim with Opera News, among many other professional publications. His 2007-08 season includes productions of Of Mice and Men and Angels in America with Fort Worth Opera, Carmina Burana with the Long Bay Symphony, in addition to Cosi Fan Tutte and La Rondine with Sarasota Opera. He returns to The Seagle Colony after a successful run of The Merry Widow in the 2007 season.
Christopher Devlin - Christopher Devlin joins the Seagle Music Colony for his first year and also currently acts as vocal coach and assistant conductor of the Connecticut Opera. Productions with the company, under Willie Anthony Waters, Cal Stewart Kellogg and Scott Bergeson include L'Italiana in Algeri, Cavalleria Rusticana, Gianni Schicchi, Carmen, Così fan tutte, Don Pasquale, Tosca and La Cenerentola. Mr. Devlin also acts as music director of Connecticut Opera's outreach and educational program, Opera Express. Having served on the faculty of McGill University as opera coach for four years, Mr. Devlin has also been recorded by CBC Radio-both as soloist, as well as with soprano Maria Pellegrini and the Cantata Singers of Ottawa. His work at Canada's National Arts Center includes the premiere performance of Steven Gellman's opera, Gianni, as well as assisting Sergiu Comissiona, Duane Wolfe and James Judd. Internationally, Mr. Devlin's recital tour of the Middle East with mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah was highlighted by a performance for the Jordanian royal family. In North America, Mr. Devlin has appeared in recital with artists including Frederick Burchinal, Mariateresa Magisano and Denyce Graves.
R. Jason Smith - R. Jason Smith returns to the Seagle Music Colony faculty for his fifth season in 2008. He'll be remembered by audiences as Music Director and pianist for Crazy for You, The Fantasticks, The Barber of Seville, La Traviata and Most Happy Fella. He is currently staff coach/accompanist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Previous to this position he was Principal Coach for the Fort Worth Opera where his duties include being rehearsal accompanist for main stage productions as well as touring across the state of Texas with Children's Opera Theatre. Mr. Smith received a Master of Music degree in Opera Coaching from Florida State University after completing a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Utah. Other experience includes work as an apprentice coach/accompanist for Utah Opera.
Richard Williams - A member of the Seagle Music Colony for his 13th Season in 2010, Richard Williams is assisant professor of accompanying and coaching at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. At UMKC he serves as coordinator of accompanying activities and as faculty coach for the Middle-America Opera Apprentice program shared by the Conservatory and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. He holds degrees in Liberal Arts and Piano Performance from the University of Akron and the Master of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Illinois. He has appeared as accompnaist with opera performers Sandra Warfield and James King. He is the official pianist for the Kansas City District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions and an official accompanist for the West Central Regional Auditions of the Music Teachers National Association. He is principal coach of the Conservatory Opera, a training program whose students are working as principals or apprentices with New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Utah Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Theater of Saint Louis, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Central City and San Francisco Opera as well as other companies.
STAGE DIRECTORS
Richard Kagey - Richard Kagey has been Director of Productions at Seagle Music Colony for over thirty years, directing operas and musicals as diverse as Oklahoma! to 2006's world premiere of Morning Star by Ricky Ian Gordon. After spending numerous years on faculty at several colleges and universities, Mr. Kagey has begun freelance directing full time. He was involved with Pasatieri's opera Frau Margot from its inception, and directed the first workshop production at Seagle Music Colony during the summer of 2005. In the summer of 2007, he directed and was also set desginer for another Pasatieri premiere, Hotel Casablanca, for the San Francisco Opera Merola Program. The opera was a co-production with the University of Kentucky, where he also directed the piece. He is currently working extensively with Atlanta Opera and will direct Of Mice and Men during the 2008 Fort Worth Opera Festival. Other experience includes direction at regional theaters and opera companies across the country as well as several years as a press agent for Broadway theaters.
David Lefkowich - David Lefkowich is an accomplished stage director and fight choreographer. Recent projects included directing The Rake's Progress at La Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium as well as directing Don Giovanniat the Ravinia Music Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and L'Histoire du Soldat with the Juilliard School, both with Maestro James Conlon conducting. David made his European directing debut with Le Portrait de Manon at the Gran Teatre Liceu in Barcelona, Spain. Other new productions included Romeo et Juliett (Minnesota Opera, Virginia Opera and Opera Tampa), La Traviata (Lake George Opera) and Le Portrait de Manon (Glimmerglass Opera). Upcoming directing includes The Marriage of Figaro at the Ravinia Music Festival and Tosca at Boston Lyric Opera.