REV. 23

(Composer) was named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals for 2018—serves as director of music at Trinity Church Wall Street, overseeing an annual season of hundreds of events. Besides serving as principal conductor of NOVUS NY, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Wachner was recently appointed as artistic director of the Grand Rapids Bach Festival. Wachner also enjoys an active schedule as a guest conductor including recent and upcoming performances with the Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Beijing Music Festival, The Shed, Philharmonia Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Kansas City Symphony, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Lincoln Center Presents, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Metropolitan Museum, Carnegie Presents, and the PROTOTYPE Festival. As a leading impresario of new music, Wachner collaborated on the development, performance and recording of three Pulitzer Prize-winning works: Du Yun’s Angels Bone (2017), Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields (2015), and Ellen Reid’s p r i s m (2019). Wachner’s own compositions have been variously described as “jazzy, energetic, and ingenious” (Boston Globe), “a compendium of surprises” (Washington Post) and “bold and atmospheric,” demonstrating “an imaginative air for allusive text setting” (The New York Times). He is published exclusively by E.C. Schirmer and represented world-wide by Opus 3 Artists.

(Librettist) creates new American opera from her chequered past in multicultural Singapore and her sojourns around the world. Her original libretti are inspired by the myths that live in our imaginations and the excitement of current events and people she encounters. With her husband Charles, she conceived of and wrote the libretti for Ouroboros Trilogy, comprising Naga (by Scott Wheeler), Gilgamesh (by Paola Prestini) and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning Madame White Snake (by Zhou Long). Ouroboros Trilogy premiered in Boston in September 2016 and was hailed as “enchanted” (Boston Globe) and “binge-worthy” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). “The music should be heard, the production should be seen and there is wisdom in the text.” (BMINT). REV. 23, a fierce and poignant satire on life after the prophesied Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation ends at Chapter 22, but not anymore!) with composer Julian Wachner premiered in 2017; and PermaDeath, one of the world’s first video game operas, with composer Dan Visconti, premiered in 2018. 2019 sees the premiere of I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, An Immigrant Story, created by immigrants to address the most important issue facing America today.  Cerise has been named a 2017 Mover & Shaper by Musical America, an award given to music professionals for driving the performing arts towards a future shaped by their vision, and one of Boston’s 100 Most Influential People of Color in 2018.

(Director) visually and emotionally arresting work at the intersection of theater, opera and film is currently in demand in venues all over the world. Darrah’s productions are known for their elegance and virtuosic and visceral “striking [work] that injects real drama” (The New York Times) that merges innovative design with movement/dance and narrative heft. Recent projects include the world premiere of Ellen Reid’s Pulitzer Prize-winning p r i s m with LA Opera and Prototype Festival,  Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up and the world premiere of Breaking the Waves, Philip Glass’ Les enfants terribles, a new production of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain with Music Academy of the West, Handel’s Alcina with Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, as well as a new film of Poulenc’s La voix humaine with Opera Philadelphia and Patricia Racette. Upcoming projects include debuts and new productions with The Kennedy Center, Theater an der Wien, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Philadelphia, and continued collaborations with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. As artistic director of the annual ONE Festival, he is “expanding the boundaries of the operatic form” (The Wall Street Journal) by framing opera in a context that is both inclusive and highly relevant. He is also the newly appointed creative director of Music Academy of the West’s Vocal Institute and on faculty at UCLA, where he completed an MFA in Theater, Film and Television. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

(Music Director) is a musical storyteller who leads from the podium with formidable precision and unflappable grace. Recent engagements include two productions with Lyric Opera of Chicago (Fellow Travelers, Gregory Spears; An American Dream, Jack Perla), along with LA Opera (Putlizer Prize-winning p r i s m, Ellen Reid), Minnesota Opera (Fellow Travelers), NOVUS NY of Trinity Wall Street (Bernstein Centennial), PROTOTYPE Festival (Acquanetta, Michael Gordon), Opera Philadelphia/Curtis Institute of Music (Empty the House, Rene Orth), PermaDeath (Dan Visconti) and a Hong Kong debut with Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone. In summer 2019 she leads the West Coast premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain in a new production by James Darrah at Music Academy of the West. Future engagements include debuts with Arizona Opera and Cincinnati Opera. Candillari is a composer as well as a conductor. A Slovenian native, she holds Doctorate in Musicology from the Universität für Musik in Vienna, a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from Indiana University, and a Master of Music and Bachelor in Piano Performance from Universität für Musik in Graz. She was a Fulbright scholar and was awarded a TED Fellowship.