Soprano Stephanie Tennill has performed with such companies as the Aspen Opera Theater Center, Encompass New Opera Theatre, Union Avenue Opera and has made appearances at Alice Tully Hall, the Metropolitan Room and has been featured at Lincoln Center in New York City as well as with Trinity Wall Street’s Concerts at One series. Additional musical theater credits include a 10-month run as Cornelia in the American Girls Revue (off-Broadway), Deb in Hot ’n’ Cole, as well as The Cabaret Singer in the world premiere of the Rodgers and Hart ballet Glad To Be Unhappy. Ms. Tennill was a member of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege voice faculty and has taught voice at Highbridge Voices (Outstanding Teacher Award), Stagecoach Theatre Arts School, and the world-renowned Saint Thomas Choir School, where she headed the vocal program for eight years. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Saint Louis University where she heads the Vocal Program, teaching voice as well as Musical Theatre Performance, and serves as director for musical theatre productions (Godspell, Seeing Other People). She is on faculty with Union Avenue Opera’s Young Artists’ Program, Crescendo, serving as a director (Hansel and Gretel) and Voice Master Class Instructor. Ms. Tennill serves as Co-Director of Musical Theatre at Manhattan School of Music’s summer program, MSM Summer, where she has served as both stage and music co-director since 2015. She is the creator of the VocalEase Mask, for which she has earned great accolades within the singing and research communities.
Jon Garrett is a lyric tenor, collaborative pianist, choral director, composer, recording artist, musical theater conductor, and instructor of piano and voice. He has performed with Union Avenue Opera, Winter Opera St. Louis, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, Missouri Ballet Theatre, Gateway Opera and Stray Dog Theatre. His compositions have been featured in performances by the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, the St. John UCC Chancel Choir, SCC Singers and Missouri Ballet Theatre. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where he studied piano with Evelyn Mitchell and voice with Dr. Mark Madsen. He holds a Masters in Music Performance from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville where his studies included collaborative piano, vocal performance, and vocal pedagogy with an emphasis on transgender voice. Jon is currently the Artistic Director of the Gateway Men’s Chorus, a St. Louis based LGBTQ chorus in its 36th season. He also serves as Adjunct Music Faculty at Saint Louis University and St. Charles Community College and is the Minister of Music at Grace United Church of Christ in O’Fallon, Missouri.
ANNA LACKSCHEWITZ, violist, received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. For two years she studied at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, Germany, and also performed with the Freiburg Philharmonisches Orchester. Her first love is chamber music, and she has studied with members of the Juilliard, Manhattan, New York, Guarneri, and Tokyo String Quartets. Freelancing in New York she played for orchestras, choruses, opera and Broadway musicals as well as commercial music. Since coming to St. Louis she has played with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and is principal violist with the Metropolitan Orchestra, the University City Symphony Orchestra and the Webster University Orchestra.
JEFFREY KURTZMAN is Professor of Music and former Chair of the Department of Music at Washington University.
He received his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from the University of Colorado and Masters and Doctors degrees in Musicology from the University of Illinois. Prior to coming to St. Louis in 1986, he taught at Cornell University, Middlebury College, and Rice University. His scholarly writing is in the field of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian sacred music and the music of Claudio Monteverdi. His research has been supported by the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Deutscher Akademischer Austaush Dienst and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
