PERFORM AMERICA - Key Persons
Craig G. Cannon was most recently the Director of Choral Organizations at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. While at Duquesne he directed the Voices of Spirit and the Pappert Women's Chorale. Mr. Cannon has been appointed as the Artistic Director of the Pittsburgh Boy Choir and is also the Artistic Director and Founder of Belle Voci of Pittsburgh. In 2013, Craig retired as the Director of Choral Activities at Fox Chapel Area High School. Under Cannon's direction, the FCAHS choral ensembles were selected to sing at numerous PMEA & ACDA conventions and toured extensively. Mr. Cannon is a life member of ACDA and completed a two-year term as President of ACDA's Eastern Division. In 2017 Craig Cannon was the recipient of the "Elaine Brown Lifetime Achievement Award," the highest award for choral music excellence bestowed by ACDA Pennsylvania.
Dr. Emily Williams Burch began teaching in 2007, including directing community choirs, teaching in public schools, training in professional development settings, and as a professor at the university level. Currently, a Professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Burch teaches music and theatre classes. Previously, she was the Coordinator of Music Education at the University of South Carolina, Aiken. Dr. Burch is also the Founder/Artistic Director of RISE Chorales LLC and RISE Outreach (a 501(c)(3)). Both RISE organizations provide community choirs and music programs to the city of Savannah, GA. Dr. Burch serves as chair for the ACDA National Standing Committee for Advocacy and Collaboration and as a published author, co-wrote "The Business of Choir" in 2022. Catch Dr. Burch on her podcast " Music (ed) Matters" or co-hosting "The Illuminate Podcast" wherever you listen to podcasts or follow her adventures running and pacing marathons all over the world at @elevatedrunningandpacing.
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director of Choirs
- Director & Vice President of Artistic Development
Dr. Gene Peterson serves as the Artistic Director & Vice President of Artistic Development for Perform International and Perform America, casting the mission and vision for performance events and tours in the United States and throughout the world.
Dr. Peterson is an internationally recognized choral conductor and clinician, whose prior appointments include Director of Choral & Vocal Studies and Professor of Music at the Collinsworth School of Performing Arts at California Baptist University in Riverside, California, Director of Choral Studies at Bethel University (Minnesota) and Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Peterson has also served as music director and conductor for college, secondary school, church, and community choirs in California and Washington. Ensembles under his leadership have performed in venues throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, including the Sistine Chapel, the Sydney Opera House, Chicago Symphony Hall, and Carnegie Hall.
Due to his reputation in the international choral community, Dr. Peterson is in high demand as a lecturer, choral clinician and adjudicator for local, regional, and international choral festivals, symposiums and workshops, has conducted numerous honor choirs and all-state choirs, and served as a guest conductor for choral concerts and festivals around the world.
Dr. Peterson has served in various functions for ACDA, the California Choral Directors Association, the California Music Educators Association, and the Minnesota Choral Directors Association.
Dr. Heather MacLaughlin Garbes is currently Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, where she helped develop and currently maintains the UW Baltic Choral Library, the first collection of its kind in the United States. She is also Founder and Artistic Director of the Mägi Ensemble, a women's ensemble that performs and records Baltic music. Dr. MacLaughlin Garbes has conducted numerous collegiate and community ensembles in the Seattle, Chicago, and Houston areas and currently conducts the Everett Chorale, the Finnish Choral Society/Swedish Singers of Seattle as well as works with the Eesti Koor (Estonian) and Vakarai Lithuanian choirs in Seattle.
Henry Ou - Founder, Managing Director
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director of Orchestras
Jeffrey Grogan is an internationally acclaimed conductor and music educator, recognized for his passionate dedication to young musicians and transformative work in music education. In 2025, he returns to Baylor University as the Mary Franks Thompson Professor of Orchestral Studies in the School of Music, coming full circle to the university where he taught from 1997 to 2002. Grogan most recently served as Director of Orchestral Activities at Oklahoma City University's Bass School of Music and Artistic Director of the Oklahoma Youth Orchestras. He has served as adjudicator, conductor, and clinician for many prestigious national and international events. In 2018, Grogan was invited by the LA Philharmonic to conduct with Gustavo Dudamel and Michael Morgan at Disney Hall. Mr. Grogan's orchestras have performed in some of the greatest concert halls in the world, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Musikverein & Konzerthaus in Vienna, Sydney Opera House, and Smetana Hall in Prague. Jeffrey Grogan is a Yamaha Corporation Master Educator.
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director of Bands
Serving since 1988 on the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin where he holds the Vincent R. and Jane D. DiNino Chair for the Director of Bands, Jerry Junkin is recognized as one of the world's most highly regarded wind conductors. He serves as Music Director and Conductor of the Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia and as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Dallas Wind Symphony. In 2005 Jerry was presented the Grainger Medallion by the International Percy Grainger Society in recognition of his championing of Grainger's works. Jerry Junkin is an enthusiastic advocate of public school music education, having conducted All-State bands and festivals in forty-eight states and on five continents. Jerry Junkin is a Yamaha Corporation Master Educator.
Kenny Kabak is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He graduated with his Masters in Music with an emphasis in Choral Conducting from Missouri State University, where he also completed a Bachelor of Music Education degree. Kenny serves as the Children's Choir Director at Christ Episcopal Church in Springfield, MO. He is a founding director of the Springfield Street Choir, a non-profit 501(c)(3) choir that serves members of the Springfield community that are currently/formerly homeless or experiencing extreme deprivation. Kenny served as the Conductor of the Drakensberg Boys Choir School in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa where the choir ranked as one of the top three children's choirs in the world with their World Choir Games performance (2018). He has toured extensively with the Drakensberg Boys Choir, as well as with the Missouri State Chorale including trips around the United States, Scotland, England, South Africa, and Japan.
Job Titles:
- Director of Tour Engagement & Production
Kerra Simmons-Cavazos is a choral conductor, educator, and soprano currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting at Texas Tech University. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of North Florida and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Texas State University. From 2018 to 2024, she served as Artistic Director of the Singing Girls of Texas at the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, leading students in grades 7-12 through acclaimed performances, festival honors, professional recordings, and an international tour to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland featuring the premiere of She Sang the Stars by Sarah Quartel. A GRAMMY® Music Educator Award semi-finalist, Kerra is passionate about inter-disciplinary concert programming, treble repertoire, and dynamic choral performances. She regularly presents and leads workshops to help conductors transform concerts into immersive experiences through thematic programming and visual elements, including movement, stage presence, and storytelling.
Krista has been involved with group travel since 2010 and worked with Perform International since 2017. As a tour operations manager, she has managed and traveled with choirs and bands who have visited Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Austria, England, Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Alaska, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington DC, and New England.
Prior to entering the group travel field, Krista was Director of Sales and Marketing for Shawnee Press, where she worked for nearly 20 years. She sings in her church choir, two community choirs and is active in organizing and promoting music events for her community.
As a child, Maggie loved reading the weekly Tourism & Travel section in Folha - the leading newspaper in Sao Paulo - dreaming of the places she would like to visit. She pursued Diplomacy in college, earning degrees in both Law and Business, as well as studying English and French abroad. When it came time to start her career, she took a position as journalist and then Assistant Editor of Tourism & Travel at the very same newspaper she read as a child. In that role, she traveled extensively throughout North and South America, as well as Europe, writing articles to help travelers plan their dream trips.
After moving to the U.S. in 2007, she blended her travel, administrative, and language skills while working in Sales & Operations for a European-based Destination Management Company. In 2013 she joined Perform International, and is currently applying her 20+ years of experience to oversight of every aspect of the tours as the Operations Manager. She is passionate about seamless organization and communication with clients so they can bring home wonderful memories of their musical journeys from around the world. In her free time, she loves cooking and learning other languages, and is currently struggling with Danish.
Natasha Valdes is a Concert Tour Specialist with a passion for developing transformative musical experiences that bring musicians closer to their art and each other. With an MM in Vocal Pedagogy from the Boston Conservatory and a BM in Vocal Performance from CSULB, Natasha combines her expertise as a performer, educator, and clinician to create meaningful opportunities for musicians to excel.
In addition, Natasha is a certified trauma-informed voice specialist through the Voice Study Center, which has led her to speak at conferences like CCDA, ACDA, CASMEC, PAVA, and NATS on the connection between the voice and the vagus nerve. Inspired by her own life-changing experiences as a performer, Natasha does workshops to equip musicians with tools to manage performance anxiety and optimize their nervous systems. She strives to create personalized, life-changing experiences that make each musician feel seen, heard, and empowered to thrive.
Paul Lam - Chairman, Founder
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Founder
- Senior Advisor
Paul Lam is the senior advisor for Perform International. Over three decades, he has successfully organized a vast number of performance and special interest tour programs to internationally acclaimed events such as the FIFA World Cup USA, Beijing Olympic Cultural & Music Festival, Oberammergau Passion Play, and the Rome Sacred Music Festival. He is also the founder of Kingsway International.
Roland Zuehlke has worked in the music performance and travel business for over 30 years. He has travelled to and lived on six continents (still working on that Antarctica Music Festival idea) and speaks multiple languages. Roland travels extensively to hear PI's amazing clients perform all over the world and to explore new destinations and concert venues. When not on the road for PI, he loves to climb mountains in the US, Europe and South America.
Zoe Franciscus - Founder, Managing Director
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Managing Director
Born and raised in Ireland, Zoe Franciscus has worked in the travel industry for over 25 years. She's lived and taught English in Japan and has been fortunate to travel throughout South East Asia and extensively in Europe. Franciscus managed her first music tour, a large youth orchestra, concertizing in Europe in 1999, and has had the privilege of traveling with hundreds of choirs, bands and orchestras, all over the world ever since. Visiting the Baltic Countries was one of her top music experiences to date and working on unique festival ideas is her specialty! As an avid marathon runner, she loves to start her days on the road clocking miles before the sun rises.