Verdi Requiem

Alexandra Loutsion, soprano

Hailed as "fearless" (Opera News) and “masterful” (Tulsa World) with a “powerful…and gorgeous voice" (MinnPost), Greek-American soprano Alexandra Loutsion continues to be recognized for her passionate performances and vocal versatility on the operatic stage.  

In the 2024-2025 season, Ms. Loutsion joins The Metropolitan Opera roster to cover the title role in Verdi’s Aida. She returns to Dallas Symphony Orchestra singing Gerhilde, and covers Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre, and returns to Virginia Opera singing Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Washington National Opera as the rehearsal cover for Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth. Additionally, she will debut with Out of the Box Opera singing the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica. Last season, Ms. Loutsion returned to Virginia Opera singing Brünnhilde in the Jonathan Dove reduction of Wagner’s Siegfried. She returned to the rosters of Lyric Opera of Chicago covering the title role in Verdi’s Aida and Houston Grand Opera covering Kundry in Wagner’s Parsifal. She also returned to The Dallas Opera singing the Overseer and covering the title role in Strauss’ Elektra, and finshed her season debuting with Lyric Opera of Kansas City singing Mother Abbess in Rogers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. Recently, Ms. Loutsion made her role and house debut with Virginia Opera as Brünnhilde in the Johnathan Dove reduction of Wagner’s Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) and returned to Opera Santa Barbara in the same role. She made her Washington National Opera debut as The Overseer, Confidante and Elektra (cover) in Strauss’ Elektra, as well as her Opera Idaho debut as Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth. She returned to Washington Concert Opera debuting Abigaille in Verdi’s Nabucco, and also returned to Pittsburgh Opera as Leonora in Il Trovatore. She made her professional musical theater debut as Mother Abbess in Rogers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music with The Glimmerglass Festival and finished the season debuting with Austin Symphony Orchestra of Minnesota in both a solo recital and Wagner selections in concert.

Ms. Loutsion’s repertoire encompasses many of opera’s dramatic leads:, Strauss’ Elektra (Minnesota Opera, Canadian Opera Company (cover)), Puccini’s Turandot (Palm Beach Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Tulsa Opera, New Orleans Opera, San Francisco Opera (cover)) Verdi’s Lady Macbeth (Lyric Opera of Chicago (cover)), Puccini’s Tosca (Central City Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, The National Symphony Orchestra, The Santa Fe Opera (cover), Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera, Fort Wayne Philharmonic) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (Austin Opera and The Santa Fe Opera (cover)). Other role highlights include the Foreign Princess/Rusalka with Arizona Opera, Florencia/Florencia en el Amazonas with Arizona Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, and Donna Anna/Don Giovanni with North Carolina Opera. She also covered the Lady-in-Waiting in Verdi’s Macbeth with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti.

In addition to iconic standard repertoire, Ms. Loutsion enjoys working with living composers to bring their heroines to life: most recently she recorded the leading role of Kayla in Kamala Sankaram’s Taking Up Serpents with Chicago Opera Theater, available on streaming services globally. She also recently debuted with Lyric Opera of Chicago as Brünnhilde in Yuval Sharon’s Twilight: Gods, a reinterpretation of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. 

One of her greatest joys is creating unique recital programs that blend storytelling, spoken narrative, and song. Recent notable programs include Grotesque Beauty: The Life of Maria Callas, a one-woman show highlighting the life of Maria Callas, and Greek Love, a program using the eight ancient Greek words for love to explore how humans experience love throughout their lives. In two iterations of Greek Love, she employed a musical language as limitless as love itself, encompassing various styles and reworking classical pieces by altering keys, merging elements, and creating a dynamic version of vocal music. This approach ensured that each audience member had something personal to connect with and take away. She is currently in the process of creating a new cabaret style performance piece entitled Right to Exist, a story about the struggle and acceptance of one’s own identity.

On the concert stage, Ms. Loutsion has sung the soprano solo in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Santa Fe Symphony and the Academy Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh, as well as Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Cathedral Choral SocietyWest Virginia SymphonySyracuse SymphoriaErie Philharmonic and as a guest soloist with the Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra.

Ms. Loutsion represented the United States as a quarterfinalist in the Francisco Viñas International Singing Contest in Barcelona, Spain. She was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition District Auditions and the Long Beach Mozart Competition, as well as a finalist in the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation Competition, McCammon Voice Competition, and Dallas Opera Competition. She is the recipient of the Catherine Filene Shouse Education Fund Career Grant from Wolf Trap Opera, Santa Fe Opera’s Donald Gramm Memorial Award and Anna Case MacKay Award, the Shoshana Foundation Richard F. Gold Career Grant, the Central City Opera John Moriarty Award, and the Aspen Music Festival New Horizon Fellowship. 

She spent two seasons each with The Santa Fe Opera and Central City Opera as an Apprentice Artist, as well as Pittsburgh Opera as a Resident Artist. She holds a Master of Music in Vocal Arts from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Ithaca College. Ms. Loutsion was also recently awarded a place in the Greek America Foundation's "Forty under 40" Class of 2018, which celebrates the professional excellence and philanthropic endeavors of North Americans of Greek descent.


Upcoming Performances

Alice Chung, mezzo-soprano

American mezzo-soprano Alice Chung is rapidly being recognized for her "operatic tonal glamour (parterre box) and being “a force of nature with a sound both powerful and appealing” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

Ms. Chung’s 2023-2024 season commenced with a celebrated house début at Boston Lyric Opera as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, after which Opera News declared Ms. Chung “one of America’s most gifted young singers.” Other notable appearances included a return to Hawai’i Opera Theatre in An American Dream and a début with Houston Grand Opera in the world premiere of The Big Swim. She also joined Boston Modern Orchestra Project for Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 and Out of the Box Opera to sing the Principessa in Suor Angelica. On the concert stage, Ms. Chung enjoyed a return engagement with the U.S. Naval Academy in Handel’s Messiah, accompanied by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. This season, Ms. Chung sings Amneris in Aida with Boston Lyric Opera, the title role in Carmen with Hawaii Opera Theatre, and she reprises her roles of the Ox and the Pig in The Big Swim, this time with Asia Society Texas in Houston.

Previous engagements included a house and role début at Hawai’i Opera Theatre as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, covering the role of Granny Jia in Dream of the Red Chamber in San Francisco Opera’s coproduction with the Hong Kong Arts Festival, along with a return to cover the role of Suzuki, and house débuts with Arizona Opera as the Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte and La mort in Le rossignol with West Edge Opera.

A graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts, Ms. Chung has also performed with Tulsa Opera, Central City Opera, Chautauqua Opera, and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Role credits include La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica, Zita in Gianni Schicchi, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Ježibaba in Rusalka, Die Hexe in Hänsel und Gretel, Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw, Larina in Eugene Onegin, and Mariana in Luisa Fernanda. On the concert stage, she has sung with the Kansas City Symphony, Bucks County Symphony, and the Naples Philharmonic at Artis-Naples. Concert credits include Duruflé’s Requiem, Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, and Beethoven’s Fantasia and Mass in C Major.

As a two-time alum of the prestigious Merola Opera Program, Ms. Chung garnered acclaim from San Francisco audiences for her excerpted portrayals of Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, Augusta Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe, and Azucena in Il trovatore, which parterre box praised for its “riveting dramatic intensity.” The San Francisco Chronicle lauded Ms. Chung’s Gertrude in Hamlet as “ringing, magisterial.” She returned for her Schwabacher Recital début, presented by the Merola Opera Program in conjunction with San Francisco Opera and has continued to perform recitals in the Bay Area since. A lover of collaboration and chamber music, Ms. Chung has premiered new works alongside standard literature.

Ms. Chung is an honored recipient of numerous grants and winner of various competitions, including the 2022 Gerda Lissner Lieder/Song Competition, the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation, First Prize and Audience Favorite awards at the Young Patronesses of the Opera, First Place in the Cooper-Bing Competition, District and Regional Winner in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, and the 2021 William Matheus Sullivan Foundation Audition Awards.

As the artistic director and co-founder of the arts and advocacy initiative Wear Yellow Proudly, Ms. Chung works to raise awareness of Asian and AAPI narratives and culture by showcasing and celebrating Asian art and artists worldwide.


Upcoming Performances

Ben Gulley, tenor

American tenor Ben Gulley has been hailed as “outstanding" (Opera News) and "startlingly gifted" (San Francisco Classical Voice). The award-winning artist’s recent seasons have included feature roles in opera, solo engagements, concert, film work, touring and important appearances abroad.

Gulley’s engagements for the 2024-2025 season include an exciting variety of fully staged productions including Rodolfo in La bohème with Knoxville Opera and Canio in Pagliacci with Pensacola Opera, as well as concert engagements such as a holiday concert with Orchestra Iowa, Carmina Burana with the Grand Rapids Symphony, and highlights from Bizet’s Carmen with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.

Recent artistic and critical triumphs include his debut as Romeo in the rave-reviewed Roméo et Juliette with Opera Idaho (2024), headlining “An Evening with Sir Tim Rice” alongside the EGOT legend himself (2024), winning Broadway World’s “Best Actor In A Musical” award for his debut as Quasimodo in Dennis DeYoung's Hunchback of Notre Dame with Skylight Music Theatre (2022), a debut as Cavaradossi in Tosca with Sarasota Opera (2022), Tenor Soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with Orchestra Iowa (2023) and international engagements as Tenor Soloist in Bruckner’s Te Deum with Maestro Hartmut Haenchen and as Tenor Soloist in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde opposite renowned mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung with the Belgian National Orchestra in Brussels and Namur, Belgium under Maestro Hugh Wolff (2021). In April of 2023, Gulley enjoyed a triumph with Portland Opera, jumping into the role of the Prince in Rusalka on two days’ notice and traveling directly to a dress rehearsal with no prior musical or stage rehearsals. Then, weeks later, he ended the season in similarly heroic and dramatic fashion by learning and performing the role of Foresto in Verdi’s Attila in three weeks’ time for a last-minute replacement at the Opera Festival of Chicago.

Other engagements of note for the 2023-2024 season included debuting with and headlining Symphony San Jose’s Christmas Pops program, a solo recital with pianist and NPR’s Peter Dugan for Fontana Chamber Arts, a role debut as Edgardo in a return to Opera Orlando for Lucia di Lammermoor, and concert appearances for Symphony San Jose’s season finale, “A Night of Puccini,” a return to Orchestra Iowa as the Tenor Soloist in Carmina Burana, and headlining with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra for their Fourth of July Touring Patriotic Pops Concerts.

Season highlights for the 2022-2023 season included engagements with the Asheville Symphony (“Night at the Opera”), concerts for Hidden Valley Music Seminars and the Tallahassee Symphony (“Viva Verdi!”), Tenor Soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with Orchestra Iowa, Radames in Aida with Fort Worth Opera, and Tenor Soloist in Bruckner’s Te Deum with the Belgian National Orchestra at the BOZAR in Brussels, Belgium.

Amidst the 2019-2022 COVID-19 disruption in the performing arts, Mr. Gulley performed the Tenor Soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (2021) and with the University of Texas-Austin Symphony (2022), his Dallas Opera Recital (digital) debut in 2020, headlined an “Opera in the Park” concert with Opera Idaho (2021), produced the online “Aria-Thon” broadcast charity event and “Opera in the Park with Ben” with Opera Steamboat (2020), as well as his 2019-2020 Ben Gulley National Recital Tour presented by LiveOnStage (cut short due to COVID-19 lockdown), recitals for Perdue University, North Dakota State University, Epworth by the Sea, Banner Elk Community Concerts and the Jacksonville, FL Museum of Science and History (2021).

Previous seasons included engagements with Opera Orlando for a role and house debut as Dick Johnson in The Girl of the Golden West (2019), Opera San Luis Obispo as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (2018) and Radames in Aida (2015), Sarasota Opera as Ismaele in Verdi’s Nabucco (2018), a debut as the Prince in Dvorak's Rusalka with Opera Steamboat (2017), a debut as Dr. Marianus in Mahler’s 8th Symphony with South Dakota Symphony (2017), the Tenor Soloist in “Beethoven vs. Coldplay” by Steve Hackman with the Grand Rapids Symphony (2017), Christmas Pops concerts with the Jacksonville Symphony (2018) and Louisville Symphony Orchestra (2018), an Operetta Recital with Sarasota Opera (2018), and headliner for The Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s Opera Ball (2019). Mr. Gulley made his international company debut with the Staatsoper Hamburg, where he covered the late Marcello Giordani as Énée in Les Troyens under Maestro Kent Nagano (2016), performing at the Great Pyramids of Egypt in Giza (2017), a company and role debut with Sarasota Opera as Pedro in d'Albert's Tiefland (2017), his Carnegie Hall debut with The American Symphony as the Tenor Soloist in Haydn's Mass in Time of War (2017), and his celebrated 70-date Ben Gulley Solo US National Recital Tour, presented by Allied Concert Services (2014-2015).

Mr. Gulley is equally at home in the musical theater, having won praise and awards for his turn as Quasimodo in Dennis DeYoung’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (Skylight Musical Theatre, 2022). Dan in Next To Normal (MTH, 2016), Jack in Into The Woods (MTH, 2010), An Evening with Cole Porter (MTH, 2014) and originating Disney’s stage version of the evil puppeteer, Stromboli, in Stephen Schwartz’s Gepetto and Son (now My Son Pinocchio, Coterie Theater).

As a contemporary crossover artist, 2016 marked the commercial release of Mr. Gulley’s debut solo album of original music, In Between, which is available on every major music distribution and streaming service. From 2010 through 2014, Mr. Gulley was also a member of the Sony/BMG Masterworks recording and global touring group The American Tenors, alongside fellow tenors Nathan Granner and Daniel Montenegro and produced by creator and producer of The Irish Tenors, Frank McNamara. Mr. Gulley was also featured twice on the nationally televised PBS Memorial Day event “Celebration At The Station” with the Kansas City Symphony and Maestro Michael Stern.


Upcoming Performances

DeAndre Simmons, bass

DeAndre Simmons

Called a "class act" by the Los Angeles Times, American bass DeAndre Simmons is consistently recognized for his velvety voice, incisive musicianship, and captivating stage presence. He has appeared on musical theater, operatic, symphonic, and recital stages in all 50 states and across four continents. Career highlights include performing Mozart's Requiem in the presence of Pope John Paul II, being one of only 10 musicians invited to participate in a concert for Nelson Mandela, and singing for seven US Presidents — from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama.

Simmons is frequently immersed in the operas of Handel, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, and Verdi. Career engagements include performances with Opera Philadelphia, San Diego Opera, Opera Panama, and Pacific Opera Victoria, and the premieres of several new works — including the West Coast premiere of William Bolcom's A Wedding, the Canadian premiere of Marc Blitzstein's Regina, and the East Coast premiere of Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison's Margaret Garner. He also sang the role of Detective Watts in the workshop of Stephen Schwartz's Séance on a Wet Afternoon. On the orchestral stage, Simmons has performed with major ensembles across the US, UK, and Europe, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, LA Phil, Kansas City Symphony, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Italy's RAI National Symphony Orchestra.

Simmons is a veteran of musical theater, having recently performed as Caiaphas in Jesus Christ Superstar, Kerchak in Tarzan, Boatman in Sunday in the Park with George, and Ken in Ain't Misbehavin'. Additional credits include Steven in She Loves Me, the Wolf in Into the Woods, Curtis in Dreamgirls, the voice of Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, and Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. He frequently performs music from the Great American Songbook in recital, concert, and cabaret settings — including his cabaret tribute to Stephen Sondheim, Just Me and Stephen: The Songs of Stephen Sondheim, which he toured across the US.

Upcoming engagements in 2024 include Montrellous in Lynn Nottage's Clyde's with Moxie Theatre, Bonze in Puccini's Madama Butterfly with San Diego Opera, the West Coast premiere of Zach Redler's The Falling and the Rising with Bodhi Tree Concerts, and a slate of solo recitals.

An alumnus of the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts and the Old Globe Theatre Intensive, Simmons holds degrees from the University of the Arts, Manhattan School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music. He studied voice with Fred Carama, Barbara Cook, and James Morris, acting with Uta Hagen, and the Fosse catalog with Ann Reinking and Jacques D'Ambroise.


Upcoming Performances