COMPOSER & LIBRETTIST

Hailed as “whirlwind” (Gramophone), Dana Kaufman’s work focuses on disruptive opera and accessible and inclusive stages. Her music has been heard at venues and festivals throughout North America and Europe, such as New York Opera Fest; Jordan Hall; Contemporary Music Center of Milan; Carlow Arts Festival; Hartford Opera Theater; Hot Air Music Festival; Boston New Music Festival; Spontaneous Combustion New Music Festival; Ravinia Festival’s One Score, One Chicago Program; and Opera on Tap Chicago. Her works also have been performed and/or commissioned by GRAMMY-winning pianist Nadia Shpachenko, Wet Ink Ensemble, So Percussion, Passepartout Duo, Great Noise Ensemble, 5th Wave Collective, mezzo-soprano/bassoonist duo Megan Ihnen and Darrel Hale, Na Wai Chamber Choir, and members of OperaRox Productions and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra. A former Fulbright Research Fellow in Estonia and four-time American Prize awardee/honoree, Kaufman also has received honors from the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, Boston Choral Ensemble, Black House New Operas Project, New American Voices, and more. Kaufman is a frequent speaker on women in composition and composing for trans voice, and has given lectures at institutions and conferences such as the LA Opera, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Leuphana Universität Lüneberg, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Music by Women Festival, and Pedagogy into Practice: Teaching Music Theory in the 21st-Century Conference.

Current projects and commissions include the premiere of a work for haegeum at Carnegie Hall, a musical/“popera” about Emily Dickinson that will be performed at the poet’s home in Massachusetts, an orchestral work for the Lowell Chamber Orchestra, and the publication of Kaufman’s aria “To my mother’s closet” in NewMusicShelf’s Anthology of New Music: Trans & Nonbinary Voices, Vol. 1.

Kaufman graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College (Bachelor of Arts in Music in Russian), completed her Master of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at University of Miami Frost School of Music as the first Frost student to be a Dean’s Fellow. She is Assistant Professor in Music Composition at University of California, Riverside. danakaufmanmusic.com

DIRECTOR

Eliza Woodyard (she/her, they/them) has enjoyed performing in operas, concerts, recitals, a cappella ensembles, and choruses in the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, the Southwest, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Recent performances include Hansel and Gretel (Gretel) and The Tales of Hoffmann: The Doll Act (Olympia) with Northwest Opera In Schools, Queer Voices with Seattle Art Song Society, Charpentier’s Te Deum with Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Real Housewives of Sparta with Seattle Modern Opera Company (Parthenis), Suor Angelica (Prima Cercatrice) with Puget Sound Concert Opera, Michel Edward’s Symphony No. 4 with Octava Chamber Orchestra, Die Zauberflöte (Erste Knabe) with Opera Classica Europa, and The Ball ad of Baby Doe (Silver Dollar, Baby Doe cover) with Opera Fort Collins. Eliza is a soprano section leader at Epiphany Parish as well as a member of the Seattle Opera Chorus, having appeared in their productions of Nabucco, Les pêcheurs de perles, Der fliegende Holländer, and Aïda. She is a member of Mägi Ensemble and performed with them alongside renowned a cappella group Latvian Voices at Benaroya Hall during their 2019-2020 season.

In addition to her singing career Eliza has been directing operas since 2019, when she directed a contemporary English-language version of Puccini’s Suor Angelica with Seattle Modern Opera Company. She was slated to assistant direct Verdi’s Macbeth at Opera Fort Collins in May 2020 before the show’s cancellation due to COVID-19. She is thrilled to be directing at Lowbrow!

Eliza earned her Bachelor of Music degree from New Mexico State University and her Master of Music degree from University of Northern Colorado.

ASSISTANT STAGE DIRECTOR AND STAGE MANAGER

Seattle-based opera director Katie Kelley hails from Houston, Texas, and relocated to Seattle in 2015 to pursue an MM in Voice Performance at the University of Washington. While at UW, she performed the titular role of La Calisto and appeared as Orphée in Orphée et Eurydice. Other notable roles include Judith in Deseret Experimental Opera Company’s 2016 premier of Red Lake and Genovieffa in Seattle Modern Opera Company’s 2019 Suor Angelica. In 2018, Katie co-founded Lowbrow Opera Collective and was tasked with directing their inaugural show, the West-Coast premier of #adulting, a new opera. She immediately fell in love with both directing and arts administration. Since then, she has had the privilege to direct a revival run of #adulting and a double cast of Lowbrow’s 2021 virtual production of WINDOWS, a set of six monodramas. This season, aside from assistant directing Diary of a Madman, Katie will direct Lowbrow’s productions of MARThA and #adulting2, here we go again. In December, Katie will be traveling to Wichita, Kansas to direct the Opera Scenes Showcase at Music on Site, Inc., which represents a long-anticipated first opportunity to direct works from the standard repertoire. She is also Vice President of Lowbrow’s Board of Directors and serves on the New Works Search Committee as well as the Production Committees for each show in our 2021-2022 season. Each of these roles provides Katie the opportunity to further her personal mission to be a catalyst for new works and fresh perspectives in opera.

COLLABORATIVE PIANIST

Born in Seoul, South Korea, HyeYeon Kim began her piano studies at age seven. She has won prizes in competitions including the Metropolitan International Piano Competition, Texas International Piano Competition, Memphis International Piano Competition, Universal Music Competition, CCM chamber music competition, and Seoul Philharmonic Competition. Also, she has performed at many venues such as Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall in NY, Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory in Boston, MA, Cypress Hall at California State University Northridge in CA, Youngsan Art Hall in Seoul, South Korea, and the Palazzo del Vignola with the Napolinova Orchestra in Todi, Italy.

Ms. Kim earned her B.M. at Yonsei University in Korea, and finished her M.M. at New England Conservatory in Boston under the guidance of Victor Rosenbaum. She got an Artist Diploma on full scholarship at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with Soyeon Kate Lee. Currently, she is pursuing a Doctoral of Musical Arts at University of Washington with Craig Sheppard and Cristina Valdes. She is doing a Teaching Assistantship for the UW Modern Music Ensemble.

Aksentiy Ivanovich Poprischin

Devorah Detzer (she/they) is a lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest on ancestral Duwamish territory. Her musical career began in 2005 as a Suzuki cellist, following the example of her grandmother, a Suzuki violin teacher. Prior to her graduation from Garfield high school in 2015, she played the roles of Chino (West Side Story), Emmett Forrest (Legally Blonde), and Roger Davis (RENT), as well as participating in the Garfield symphony orchestra, concert, and vocal jazz choirs. In 2016, she began studying classical voice performance at the University of Washington under the instruction of Cyndia Sieden. While an undergraduate, she performed the roles of Giove (La Calisto), Figaro (Marriage of Figaro), and Baritone 1 (Hydrogen Jukebox), as well as singing with the University of Washington Chamber Singers, and directing the a cappella group Hounds of Music. In 2019, she became the first student to graduate from the University of Washington with both a bachelor of music in classical voice performance and interdisciplinary honors. During these years, she also became an advanced guitar player and lyric songwriter. Her musical stylings range from contemporary alternative, to bluegrass flatpicking, to fingerstyle and percussion guitar, each paired with complex lyric poetry. Her debut book, I Fell, is currently in publication. Detzer began transition in April, 2021. She now works in a local nursery, learning to care for her many plants and supporting her many artistic projects. She looks forward to a long, enriching partnership with Lowbrow Opera Collective.

Sahfee

Soprano Kayla Wilkens is thrilled to be singing the role of Sahfee in Lowbrow Opera Collective’s Diary of a Madman. Her 2021-2022 season includes the professional premiere of The Ghosts of Gatsby with Opera Las Vegas as a young Zelda Fitzgerald, opening the new Barnwood Bravo Dinner Theater in The Güt Life with Blue Gate Musicals, holiday season performances with EJG Productions in Las Vegas, and premiering the new musical We’ll Meet Again at the historic Savannah Theater. She recently performed as Mary in A Christmas to Remember and Naomi in Stolen: The Musical with Blue Gate Musicals, as Harriet Perry in the Lied Center tour of Civil War Voices, and as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance with Sin City Opera. She also toured with Sounding Light, originated roles in two ASCAP award-winning premieres, and performed as a featured soloist in concerts sharing the stage with celebrated composers Scott Frankel, Steven Lutvak, and Stephen Bray. Favorite opera roles include Laoula in L’Etoile, La Fée in Cendrillon, Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Cunegonde in Candide. Regional musical theater roles include Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel in Into the Woods, Janet Van De Graaff in The Drowsy Chaperone, Cosette in Les Miserables, Adele Rice in A Man Of No Importance, Julie Jordan in Carousel, Beth in Little Women, and Johanna in Sweeney Todd. Sending love and special thanks for my amazing husband, our beautiful cats, and our wonderful family and friends. 1 Corinthians 10:31 www.kaylawilkens.com

Medji

Hailed by Opera News as “first rate,” Megan Cullen is a young, dramatic soprano whose powerful voice and compelling characterizations are capturing the devotion of audiences throughout the world.

In the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Cullen had several role debuts, including Abigaille in Nabucco, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Nella in Gianni Schicchi, the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. She also reprised the Mother in Hansel and Gretel. During the pandemic (2021), Megan learned and performed the role of Anna Maurrant (Street Scene) in an innovative on-line production with Young Artists of America. Megan returned to OperaMaya as her first in- person engagement post-pandemic; she was delighted to be promoted to the Young Artist position and presented arias from La Gioconda and Don Carlo with the touring company. Coming up in 2021, Megan sings the role of Medji in Dana Kaufman’s Diary of a Madman with Lowbrow Opera Collective in Seattle, WA. Later this season, in 2022, Megan will sing the title role in Elektra with Opera Programs Berlin.

Fidele

A native of London, Biraj's recent engagements include Merlin in the staged world premiere of Paul Richard’s ‘The Loathly Lady’ at the Vienna Summer Music Festival in June, Siglo de Oro Ensemble’s tour to Regensburg at the Tage Alter Musik in October, and William in As You Like It with Shakespeare in the Woods Vermont. Performance highlights include Tirsi in Gagliano’s La Dafne with the European Opera Academy in Latvia, Kenny Fuller in the world premiere of Francis Trester’s ‘Keepers of the Light’ at the Nahant Music Festival, the title role in Handel’s ‘The Choice of Hercules’ with Collegium Musicum Riga in Latvia in 2019, 3rd Israelite in Handel's Esther with Music of the Baroque, the world premiere of Sasquatch : The Opera at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival , Mago in Handel's Rinaldo for Opera Mission in 2016, and the Eunuch in Dina Pruzhansky's'Shulamit' at the JCC Manhattan in 2016.

Biraj was an Alto Lay Clerk with the full time professional choir at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle for 4 years, where he performed in many tours, recordings and royal occasions. He was also a staff singer with the full time professional choir at the Washington National Cathedral, from 2016-21. Biraj is a graduate of the University of Manchester, Trinity College of Music in London, and the Manhattan School of Music.

Fidele (cover)

Anjul Bansal is a Sophomore at the University of Washington. She has been learning opera for 5 years. Previously, she has sung numerous choirs including All State Choir and Columbia Choirs. In her free time Anjul loves to weightlift, rock climb, and goof around with her sassy chihuahua!

PRODUCTION TEAM &
Head of Department

Jared is a native Seattleite who has been singing around the PNW since his voice dropped. He has sung with the Seattle Symphony Chorale for fifteen seasons and with various church and local groups. He first sang with Lowbrow in 2019 during the premier performance of #adulting and again in its repeat performance in 2020. This season he joined the Lowbrow Board of Directors as Marketing Director. His love of opera is matched only by his love of dogs, gardening, reading, and the Oxford comma.