OPERA ITHACA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Treasurer of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Ben Robinson is the Artistic Director of Opera Ithaca (New York) and Raylynmor Opera (New Hampshire), and the Managing Director of Lyric Fest (Philadelphia's art song concert series). As a stage and film director, he has mounted numerous productions, highlighted by new productions for which he also wrote new English libretti: Madame Butterfly, Macbeth, Hansel and Gretel, The Barber of Seville, Die Fledermaus, Bastien and Bastienne, and Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon. Recent directing credits include Suor Angelica, La tragédie de Carmen, and Iolanthe, co-creating Lyric Fest's video series, #ConqueringSocialDistanceOneSongataTime, and film productions of Pagliacci for Raylynmor Opera and Gianni Schicchi for Opera Ithaca, the latter of which Opera Magazine heralded as the "deftest use... of Covid-era technology as part of modern operatic reality." This season, projects include film productions of Hansel and Gretel and The Impresario, stage productions of The Medium (Amarillo Opera), L'enfant et let sortilèges (Ithaca College), Così fan tutte (Cedar Rapids Opera), We Wear the Sea Like a Coat (World Premiere), Le nozze di Figaro, La Cenerentola, and Falstaff, and the first ever music video by the Opera Cowgirls.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- President of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Vice President of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Lynn Craver is a versatile coloratura soprano and actress. She has performed roles including Belinda in Dido and Aeneas, Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Marion in The Music Man, Hélène in Une éducation manquée , Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, Madame Hertz in Der Schauspieldirektor, Erste Dame in Die Zauberflote, Ermia in Il Sogno, The Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel, and Cunegonde in Candide among others. An active member of the Ithaca arts community, Lynn is the co-founder and former Artistic Director of Opera Ithaca, served as Development Assistant for the Kitchen Theatre, was Production Coordinator for the former Ithaca Opera, and has performed with community arts organizations including the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Triphammer Arts Inc., Cornell Savoyards, Kitchen Theatre Company, and Women's Works as well as appearing in recital at various local venues. Also dedicated to the art of teaching, Lynn instructs voice at the Performing Arts Department, SUNY Cortland, is the Director of the Apprentice Artist program at Opera Ithaca, and teaches a private voice studio in Ithaca, NY. Lynn earned her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Vocal Performance from Ithaca College.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Playwright, director, and choreographer Rachel Lampert began her career in NYC Following the 1975 inaugural NYC season of Rachel Lampert & Dancers, she performed, toured and created text-driven "dance plays" for 17 years. Her company appeared at Jacob's Pillow, Delacourte Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop and in cities as diverse as San Francisco, Chicago and Florence, Italy as well as Hope, David City and Southport (Arkansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and England respectively). She has collaborated with jazz musician/composer Billy Taylor, new music composer Sergio Cervetti, as well as musical theater composers Larry Pressgrove, John Coyne and Lesley Greene. She took the post of Artistic Director at Kitchen Theatre Company in 1997. Employing her mantra "bloomed where you're planted", she led the theater through hard times and ultimately to a place where it owns its own space, is a union house and enjoys considerable financial stability. She retired from KTC in 2017. She received a SALT Award for Best Actress 2004 and the SALT Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Her play The Soup Comes Last chronicling her experience staging West Side Story in China had a month-long NYC season in 2004. She started Fitz&Startz Productions in 2015 (www.fitzandstartzproductions.org) to have a home for her plays for younger audiences. She has a life-long love of classical music and "making things from scratch". Always looking for a new challenge, she has been enjoying this three-way/two-continent collaboration with Sally and Yvonne.
Described as "edgy, descriptive, and extremely soulful," Sally Lamb McCune's work ranges from solo and chamber music to works for band, orchestra, and choir. A native of Detroit, McCune was educated at University of Toronto, California Institute of the Arts, and earned an MFA and DMA from Cornell University. Her principal teachers have included Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra and Mel Powell. McCune's music continues to gain national and international recognition with commissions and performances across North America and Europe. Awards include a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Whitaker New Reading Session from the American Composers Orchestra, grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Fund Creation Grant, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, and the Aaron Copland Recording Fund. Her work is published by G. Schirmer, Hal Leonard, Heritage Music Press and Murphy Music Press. McCune has taught at Cornell University, Syracuse University and is currently on the faculty at Ithaca College.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Yvonne Gray is a poet and writer who lives in Orkney in Scotland's Northern Isles. She studied for an MA (Hons) in English Language and Literature at the University of Edinburgh and as a mature student, graduated with MLitt (Distinction) from the University of the Highlands and Islands. A collection, In the Hanging Valley, was published by Two Ravens Press in 2008. Several pamphlets have also been published, including Reflections (Hansel Cooperative Press), shortlisted for the Callum MacDonald Memorial Award for Scottish poetry in 2013. Her poems have been published widely in Scottish anthologies and literary magazines and have appeared in publications in Maine (USA), Slovakia, and Australia. She has received a writers bursaries from the Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland) and Hi-Arts. She has been involved in a variety of artistic collaborations involving music, poetry, visual arts and archaeology and is currently working on a new collection of writing.