Naftzger Auditions and Awards

Elizabeth Byrne, soprano has established herself as one of the most exciting dramatic sopranos of her generation. She has performed leading roles at The Metropolitan Opera both in New York, Tokyo & Seoul. Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Opernhaus Zurich, Staattheater Stuttgart, Canadian Opera Company, Toronto, Stadtheater Luzern,  Scottish Opera in Glasgow and The Edinburgh Festival, English National Opera in London, Glyndebourne Festival and in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem & Haifa with the Israeli Philharmonic to name but a few. She has worked with such conductors as James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Sirs Antonio Pappano, Andrew Davis, Richard Armstrong, Charles Mackerras, Mark Elder and Bernard Haitink,  Dr. Jane Glover, Bruno Bartoletti, Claudio Desderi, Edo de Waart, Leonard Slatkin, Maurizio Arena and Lothar von Zagrosek 

Ms. Byrne established herself firstly in the Italian repertoire, most notably as Tosca, as well as the title role in Manon Lescaut, Minnie in La Fanciulla del West, Leonora in Il Trovatore, the role of Amelia in both Un Ballo in Maschera and Simone Boccanegra, Aïda, Maddalena di Coigny in Andrea Chenier, Elena and Margarita in Boito’s Mefistofele and lesser known roles such as Asteria in Boito’s Nerone and the title role of Lucretia by Ottorino Respighi. Her first foray into the German repertoire was singing Gerhilde and 3rd. Norn  at Welsh National Opera. In the latter part of her performing career, Miss Byrne  excelled in many German roles such as the title role in Salome (Glimmerglass Opera) and Leonore in Fidelio. Her Wagnerian repertoire includes the roles of Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, Senta, Isolde, Ortrud, Gutrune, Gerhilde, Ortlinde and Fricka  Her Brünnhilde at the Edinburgh Festival earned her The Herald Award for outstanding performance as well as a Royal Philharmonic  Society award nomination. An excellent musician, she created the role of Blanca in the world premiere of James Macmillan’s Ines de Castro which was also broadcast on BBC-TV. and the role of The Stepdaughter in Hugo Weisgall’s Six Characters in Search of an Author recorded by New World Music.The Edinburgh Festival production of Siegfried was also filmed for the BBC and she has recorded the role of Respighi’s Lucretia on the Bongiovanni label.

Ms. Byrne received her musical education in her native UK. She graduated from The Birmingham School of Music and then continued her postgraduate studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where she studied with Frederic Cox. She was invited to join The National Opera Studio which was the forerunner of the Jette Parker YAP at The Royal Opera House,Covent Garden where she worked with such luminaries as Tito Gobbi, Hans Hotter, Graziella Sciutti and Regina Resnik.  This was followed by a years study at The International Opera Studio in Zurich under the direction of Marc Belfort.

Ms. Byrne emigrated to the USA in 1989 after her marriage to her late husband James, a native Chicagoan. She continued her vocal studies with the legendary teacher Margaret Harshaw until her death in 1997. Ms. Byrne was a member of the Voice Faculty at De Paul University School of Music from 2009-2017. Ms. Byrne was a member of the Voice Faculty at Opera Viva in 2018 and since 2015 has been a regular Voice Instructor at Chicago Summer opera, now recognised as one of the largest Young Artist Programmes not just in the USA but globally.

 

Lina Bahn is a violinist who has a keen interest in collaborative and innovative repertoire, and has been called “brilliant” and “lyrical” by the Washington Post.  Her most recent publication of Axolotl for violin and electronics  on Neuma Records was released with high acclaim, “proves not only her technical brilliance, but also her flair for innovative musical narratives”. Her first solo album, Mean Fiddle Summer on the Naxos Label was hailed by the ClevelandClassical.com, “From start to finish, the violinist demonstrates her adroit technical facility, kaleidoscope of colors, and consummate musical taste.”

As a committed educator, she was on the faculty at the University of Colorado-Boulder from 2008-2015, and has taught masterclasses and lessons throughout the world, including those at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore, the Sydney Conservatory, Hong Kong University, Renmin University in Beijing, The Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music, among others.  She was on the faculty of the Sierra Summer Academy of Music, the Institute of the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, Italy, Green Mountain Chamber Music Summer Festival, the Borromeo Music Festival, the Mostly Modern Festival, and the Atlantic Music Festival. Currently, she teaches at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she was twice awarded the Thornton Teaching Award, along with the Dean’s Teaching Award. Lina has been the adjudicator for the Dallas International Violin competition, YCA (Young Concert Artists), among others.

Chamber music collaborations include those with Matt Haimovitz, Kathleen Tagg, and David Krakauer at the Oregon Bach Festival, and guest performer with the Takacs Quartet at Strathmore Hall, Concertgebouw Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Mariinsky Theater, and Queen Elizabeth Hall.  She was a member of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet, lauded by the Strad Magazine, and whose Naxos recording was selected by The New Yorker magazine as one of the year’s “Best 10 Recordings”. She is a founding member of MoVE (Modern Violin Ensemble), a group of four violinists dedicated to social change, and served as the Executive Director and violinist with the VERGE Ensemble in residency at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.  In 2023, she was a participant in the International Gugak Workshop in Seoul, Korea.. 

Her degrees are from the Juilliard School as a student of Dorothy DeLay (BM), University of Michigan with Paul Kantor (MM), Indiana University with Paul Biss and  Miriam Fried (DM), and early training was under the guidance of Almita and Roland Vamos. 

Pianist Natasha Kislenko, hailed for her “vividly expressive” interpretations and “virtuosity that left the audience exhilarated,“ (Santa Barbara Independent) offers unique concert programs and presentations to the worldwide community of music listeners. A prizewinner of several international piano competitions, she has extensively concertized in Europe, Turkey, Israel and across the Americas.

Ms. Kislenko made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut after taking the Grand Prize at the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition. Recent solo engagements include the Eskişehir Greater Municipality Symphony Orchestra, Turkey, the Varna Chamber Orchestra, Bulgaria and New West Symphony, Thousand Oaks, CA. A resident pianist of the Santa Barbara Symphony since 2010, she has been a featured soloist for the Shostakovich, Grieg, Clara Schumann, Dohnanyi, de Falla, and Mozart piano concerti, to great critical acclaim. In 2013, Ms. Kislenko was invited as a special guest to present the new Steinway D piano at the Teatro Municipal Ignacio A. Pane in Asunción, Paraguay, performing with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Congreso Nacional.

Ms. Kislenko is in high demand as a piano collaborator. She has shared the stage with many distinguished musicians including Glenn Dicterow, Richie Hawley, Frank Huang, Joshua Roman, and the Takács Quartet, to name only a few. She, along with the violinist Chavdar Parashkevov, released two CDs for violin and piano, “Russian Sonatas” and “Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler.” The Strad magazine praised her “limpid and beautiful pianism.”

In addition to a successful performing career, Natasha has been a dedicated educator and mentor to the younger generations of aspiring musicians. A collaborative faculty member at the Music Academy of the West, CA since 2004, Natasha joined the piano faculty at University of California, Santa Barbara in 2007. She has recently appeared with performances and masterclasses at University of Maryland College Park, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Houston Moores School of Music (TX), Tulane University (LA), San Diego State University and Texas State University San Marcos. Internationally, she presented at Mimar Sinan University (Turkey), Scuola Musicale di Sesto Fiorentino (Italy), Conservatorio "Pietro Mascagni" (Livorno, Italy) and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (London, England) where she had a three-day teaching residency. Natasha has done numerous adjudications for MTNA and MTAC.

Dr. Kislenko holds degrees in piano from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, NY. Her main teachers include Anatoly Vedernikov, Gilbert Kalish, and Joaquín Achúcarro.