Roster of Artists

Mireille Asselin | Jesse Blumberg | Mischa Bouvier | Alan Darling

Margaret Kampmeier | Abi Levis | Daniel McGrew | Scott Murphree | Grant Wenaus

Mireille Asselin, Soprano

A singer deemed “a treasure” by The Toronto Star, soprano Mireille Asselin enjoys a diverse, international career spanning concert, opera, and recital work. Mireille has sung five seasons at the Metropolitan Opera, where her performance as Adele in Die Fledermaus under the baton of James Levine, was hailed by critics as “show stealing” and one of New York’s “most enchanting” of the season. She is a respected interpreter of contemporary and early music and performs regularly with leading orchestras and period ensembles in North America and Europe. Recent credits include Zerlina in Don Giovanni at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at New York’s Carnegie Hall. This season she appears with Opera Atelier (Eurydice in Orpheus and Eurydice), Re:Naissance Opera and Vancouver Opera (Eleanor of Aquitaine in World Premiere of Olsen’s Sanctuary and Storm), Edmonton Opera (Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni), and Garsington Opera in the UK (La Folie in Rameau’s Platée). She also sings Handel’s Messiah with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra and the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra and will give numerous recitals across North America. Mireille is a graduate of the Canadian Opera Company Studio, Yale University, and the Royal Conservatory of Music. She is a core member of the Mirror Visions Ensemble, a group which creates and tours innovative song recitals worldwide. Her discography includes solo discs recorded for Marquis Classics and Centrediscs, as well as Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with the Handel and Haydn Society on the CORO label. For more info visit www.mireilleasselin.com.

Jesse Blumberg, Baritone

Baritone Jesse Blumberg enjoys a busy schedule of opera, concerts, and recitals, performing repertoire from the Renaissance and Baroque to the 20th and 21st centuries. He has performed featured roles at Minnesota Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Atlanta Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Boston Early Music Festival, Opera Atelier, and at Château de Versailles Spectacles and London’s Royal Festival Hall. He has sung major concert works with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Boston Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Oratorio Society of New York, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, and on Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. Jesse’s recital highlights include appearances with the New York Festival of Song, Marilyn Horne Foundation, and University Musical Society, as well as performances of the Schubert song cycles with pianist Martin Katz. He has given the world premieres of several acclaimed American operas and song cycles, and works closely with many renowned composers as a member of the Mirror Visions Ensemble. He has been featured on nearly thirty commercial recordings, including the 2015 Grammy-winning and 2019 Grammy-nominated Charpentier Chamber Operas with Boston Early Music Festival. Jesse’s other albums include Bach cantatas with Montréal Baroque, Winterreise with pianist Martin Katz, Rosenmüller cantatas with ACRONYM, and St. John Passion with Apollo’s Fire. Recognized in several competitions, he was awarded Third Prize at the 2008 International Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau, becoming its first American prizewinner in over thirty years. Jesse received undergraduate degrees in History and Music from the University of Michigan and a Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He is also the founding artistic director of Five Boroughs Music Festival in NYC, and recently served as a guest instructor of voice at The Cleveland Institute of Music. www.jesseblumberg.com

Mischa Bouvier, Baritone

Baritone Mischa Bouvier has appeared with many leading orchestras and ensembles including Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Stern Auditorium and the New York Live Arts Theater, New York Festival of Song, the Folger Consort, Sting at Disney Hall, Musica Sacra at Lincoln Center, the Princeton Glee Club, the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, El Festival Casals de Puerto Rico, the Five Boroughs Music Festival, the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall, the Metropolis Ensemble, Christopher Williams Dance, TENET Vocal Artists, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, Anonymous 4, Bronx Opera, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, ACRONYM, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Opera in the Heights, Musica Sacra Maastricht, the Stamford Symphony, Mark Morris Dance Group at Seiji Ozawa Hall, the American Bach Soloists, the Lysander Piano Trio, the Sinaloa Symphony Orchestra, and The Knights, and has offered recitals throughout the United States and in Asia. Mischa holds degrees from Boston University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. www.mischabouvier.com

Alan Darling, Piano

Scottish pianist Alan Darling has performed recitals throughout Europe, Canada and the United States, collaborating with artists such as Jamie Barton, Nicole Cabell, Christiane Karg, Brandon Jovanovich, Amanda Majeski, Susanna Phillips, Matthew Polenzani, Samuel Ramey and Amber Wagner. From 1993-2005 he performed more than fifty song recitals at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute. Mr. Darling has premiered new works for voice and piano by Christopher Berg, Tom Cipullo, Russell Platt and Scott Wheeler with the Mirror Visions Ensemble. He was an assistant conductor at Lyric Opera of Chicago for several seasons and worked closely with Maestro Bruno Bartoletti and Sir Andrew Davis. Mr. Darling taught at Yale University from 1993 to 1998 and is currently on the faculty at Northwestern University, where he is principal opera coach and teaches classes in American, English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish song repertoire. He teaches at Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center and San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program.

Margaret Kampmeier, Piano

Pianist Margaret Kampmeier enjoys a varied career as soloist, collaborative artist and educator. Equally fluent in classical and contemporary repertoire, she has concertized and recorded extensively. In addition to Mirror Visions Ensemble, Kampmeier has appeared with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic Ensembles, Kronos Quartet, Saratoga Chamber Players, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Richardson Chamber Players, and the Locrian Chamber Players. As orchestral keyboardist, she performs regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and is a frequent guest of the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. As a recording artist, she can be heard on the Albany, Centaur, CRI, Koch, Nonesuch, and Bridge labels. Kampmeier teaches piano and chamber music at Princeton University, and is currently Chair and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Barry Snyder. She pursued graduate studies with Gilbert Kalish at SUNY Stony Brook, receiving both Master’s and Doctoral Degrees. A native of Rochester, NY, Ms. Kampmeier resides currently in New York City.

Abi Levis, Mezzo-Soprano

Mezzo-soprano Abi Levis is enjoying a flourishing career on opera and concert stages from Berlin to Los Angeles. Featured in a recent Opera News Sound Bites column, her 2019-20 season included appearances as Romeo in I Capuletti e i Montecchi in Estonia, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro for Florentine Opera, Annio in La clemenza di Tito in Nantes, Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus for Fort Worth Opera, and Mozart’s Requiem for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The Maine native was a member of the Lucerne Opera last season where her roles included Orfeo in Gluck’s opera of that name, Stephano in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. Ms. Levis made her debut with Dallas Opera appearing as Flora in La Traviata and for San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle she sang Rose in Heggie’s At the Statue of Venus and Dinah in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. She appeared with Deutsche Oper Berlin during the 2016-17 season in such roles as Mercedes in Carmen, the title role in Hirsch and Purcell’s Dido, and Tebaldo in Don Carlo. In North America, she sang Messiah with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Portland Baroque. In 2016 she appeared as Cherubino for Wolf Trap Opera and sang the role of Sesto in a concert version of Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Symphonie Atlantique (Netherlands). Named “Debut Artist of the Year” by the Joy in Singing Foundation, this exciting young artist was hailed by The New York Times for her “lithe-voiced” performance at the Morgan Library in “First Songs,” a showcase of world premieres with soprano Dawn Upshaw. Passionate about new music, Ms. Levis has worked closely with composers such as John Harbison, John Musto, Elena Langer, Tamzin Elliot, and Brian Suits. www.abigaillevis.com

Daniel McGrew, Tenor

Praised for his “lovely, nuanced tenor” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Daniel McGrew is an active performer of a broad range of repertoires spanning opera, musical theatre, early, and new musics. Upcoming engagements include Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen with Brooklyn Art Song Society, the world premiere of songs by John Harbison at SongFest, the American premiere of George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence at Tanglewood, his third residence at the Marlboro Music Festival in southern Vermont, and appearances with Gamut Bach Ensemble on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Series. A winner of the 2021 Young Concert Artist auditions, Daniel will make his solo recital debuts in NYC and Washington D.C. in December of 2022.An early music specialist, Daniel has performed Bach with conductors including Matthew Halls, John Harbison, David Hill, Kenneth Slowik, and Masaaki Suzuki, including a one-on-a-part B Minor Mass at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. As a soloist with Yale’s Schola Cantorum, he appeared in Bach’s Mass in A Major at Alice Tully Hall, Arvo Pärt’s Passio in performances throughout Russia and the Baltic region, Bach’s Magnificat throughout India, and the Monteverdi Vespers 1610 and Händel’s Occasional Oratorio in New York and New Haven.Daniel is particularly devoted to song repertoire and recital performance, appearing regularly with Brooklyn Art Song Society, Cincinnati Song Initiative, New York Festival of Song, and more. In 2020 he joined the Mirror Visions Ensemble, with whom he performs regularly each season. Recent recital highlights include Schumann’s Dichterliebe at Cornell University, a James Primosch memorial recital on the NYFOS Next series, and two performances of Wolf’s complete Mörike Lieder with Martin Katz.Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory, Yale University; in 2020 he completed his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan.

Scott Murphree, Tenor

Tenor Scott Murphree is a distinguished singer of the concert, recital and opera stage. In addition to specializing in traditional opera repertoire, he has also created roles in several world premieres of operas including Allan Jaffee’s Mary Shelley, Christopher Berg’s Cymbeline, and Tina Davison’s Billy and Zelda. Highlights of recent engagements include performances with Central City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Utah Opera, Opera Delaware, Nevada Opera, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Atlantic Chamber Orchestra, New York Festival of Song, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, 92nd Street Y, Walter Reade Theater, Town Hall in Seattle, Eos Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, Southeast Texas Symphony, Cape May Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and Pacific Music Festival in Japan. He has worked closely with composers such as Ned Rorem, Ricky Ian Gordon, Robert Beaser and Richard Hundley, and has premiered songs written especially for him by Yehudi Wyner, Tom Cipullo, Richard Pearson Thomas and Christopher Berg. Murphree has served on the voice faculties of the University of Connecticut and the Yale School of Drama and currently serves as an adjunct professor on the voice faculty in the Steinhardt School at New York University. Murphree received his B.M. from the University of North Texas, his M.M. from Yale University, and his D.M.A. from State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Grant Wenaus, Piano and Music Director

Grant Wenaus, originally from Regina, Canada, is a pianist, vocal coach, conductor and professor. He created the Collaborative Piano Studies program at NYU, where he conducted productions including The Magic Flute, L'enfant et les sortilèges, Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus in the Underworld, The Merry Widow, Ragtime, City of Angels and The Light in the Piazza. Dr. Wenaus is a Principal Coach and Assistant Conductor at the Glimmerglass Festival, and has been a vocal coach for the UpNorth Vocal Institute, the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Florence Voice Seminar and the College Audition Advantage program at Hartford University. At Glimmerglass, he has performed in recitals with Eric Owens, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Jay Hunter Morris, Nathan Gunn, David Pittsinger, Marietta Simpson and Leah Crocetto. He has also accompanied many concerts at Symphony Space in New York City, working with such Broadway luminaries as John Kander, Jason Robert Brown, Andrew Lippa, Carolee Carmello, Kate Baldwin, Rebecca Luker, Julia Murney and Brian D'Arcy James. He is currently on faculty at the Mannes School of Music in New York and Montclair State University in New Jersey.