CASEY ROBARDS
Korean American transracial adoptee, Casey Robards (Suh Jung Ahn) is a music director, pianist and vocal coach known for her sensitive musicality, expert collaborative skill, and stylistic versatility. Her performances regularly cross between opera, art song, chamber music, and musical theatre, with specialities in the Negro spiritual. She has given recitals throughout the United States, and in Europe, Central and South America and Asia. In 2024-2025, Robards has conducting debuts with Kentucky Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Opera Columbus, El Paso Opera, Soo Opera and presents song recital programs with Kenneth Overton, Karen Slack, Latoya Lain, and Jennifer Lien. Dedicated to the performance, research and promotion of music by Black composers and writers for nearly three decades, her recent recording release “What Dreams We Have” with Kenneth Overton (Lexicon Classics) debuted at #10 on the Billboard Chart for Top Classical Album. Her latest CD release is “Contemplations” (Navona Records) with Bernhard Scully, formerly with the Canadian Brass. Robards is Music Director of Ensemble Concert 21 a chamber group devoted to the performance of contemporary music and the mentorship of young and emerging composers and Chair of the Sacred in Opera Initiative (National Opera Association). An experienced pedagogue, Dr. Robards is currently Asst. Prof. of Lyric Theatre at the University of Illinois. Over 17 seasons at the Bay View Music Festival, she co-directed an opera scenes program and the American Spiritual Intensive, served as Head of Collaborative Piano and played hundreds of concerts as a faculty artist. She has been on the faculty of Indiana University, Oberlin Conservatory and Central Michigan University, given workshops and masterclasses at several colleges and worked as coach/repetiteur for Santa Fe Opera, New Orleans Opera. She has been an active member in IKCAS, NOA, NATS and CMS.
STELLA MARKOU
Soprano Stella Markou, hailed as “exquisite” by Gramophone, has performed internationally as a soloist in opera, oratorio, and on the concert stage. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, she has appeared at renowned festivals including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Heidelberg New Music Festival, International Computer Music Conference, Paros Parks Festival, Electronic Music Midwest, Xortos Music Festival, Naxos Island Music Festival, and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music (SEAMUS).
She has been featured as a guest artist with the Edinburgh Contemporary Musical Ensemble, Union Avenue Opera, Masterworks Chorale, Dance New Amsterdam Company, University of Nevada Las Vegas Concert Series, Ambassadors of Harmony, Arianna String Quartet, the Nassau Music Society, and the Nashville Ballet.
As a concert soloist, she has performed major works such as Orff’s Carmina Burana, Fauré’s Requiem, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Poulenc’s Gloria, Mozart’s Requiem, Rutter’s Gloria, and Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen. Her operatic roles include Pique Dame, Die Zauberflöte, The Turn of the Screw, The Mikado, The Telephone, and The Songstress, among others.
Highly regarded as both a performer and master teacher, Dr. Markou has presented masterclasses across North & South America, Europe, and China. She currently serves as Professor, Director of Opera, and Coordinator of Voice and Opera at the University of Kansas. Her previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, the Festival of International Opera, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’s Artist-in-Training Program.
As a stage director, her productions have twice earned first place in the National Opera Association’s Opera Production Competition and have also received first place in The American Prize for Opera Production.
Dr. Markou holds a Bachelor of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Arizona. Her discography is available on the Naxos, MSR, and SEAMUS labels.
JOSHUA STEWART
A leading proponent of contemporary opera, American tenor Joshua Stewart enjoys a successful career singing standard and often rarely-heard works. Last season’s highlights include his critically acclaimed performances in the roles of Street and Elijah in Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at Seattle Opera, and he garnered further excellent reviews for his portrayal of Pelegrin in Keith Warner’s production of New Year at Birmingham Opera Company, conducted by Alpesh Chauhan OBE. Based in Berlin, he returned to the Barbican for Jose Garcia’s 1826 Messa di Santa Cecilia with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Future engagements include the 2024-25 season opening of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Kazuki Yamada; Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos with Israeli Opera; and the title role, Idomeneo, in a major European opera house yet to be announced.
Stewart’s previous appearances include the role of Valcour in L’amant Anonyme and the role of Jonah in Kris Defoort’s The Time of Our Singing, both at Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland; his debut as Rodolfo in La Boheme with Rossen Milanov and the Columbus Symphony; his debut as The Son in the highly acclaimed new work Blue at Seattle Opera; his debut in the title role Albert Herring at Princeton Festival in the US; the tenor soloist in Sanctuary Road with Chautauqua Symphony; and George Walker’s Mass and Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, both with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In past engagements, Stewart joined conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla in Paris and on tour with the CBSO in the UK and to Germany as tenor soloist in Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. He traveled to the US to appear with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Das Paradies und die Peri under the baton of Paolo Bortolameolli, and remained to revive the title role in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird at Seattle Opera, a role he previously sang at Madison Opera, Atlanta Opera, and Arizona Opera.
Earlier career highlights include the roles of Zinovy in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Lazarus in the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s Wake, both at Birmingham Opera Company, directed by Graham Vick; Antenore in Zelmira and Giove in Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo at Rossini in Wildbad. His concert appearances have featured Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the CBSO under Sir Simon Rattle, Carmina Burana with the Toledo Symphony, and Erzengel in Walter Braunfels’s Das Spiel von der Auferstehung des Herrn with the Muenchner Rundfunkorchester.
Collaborating with director Peter Sellars, Stewart sang the role of The Shepherd in Oedipus Rex at the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and London’s Royal Festival Hall, under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen. He made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Narrator in Sellars’s Das Paradies und die Peri with Gustavo Dudamel on the podium.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Joshua attended the prestigious New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), joining their list of distinguished alumni: Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick, Jr., Jon Batiste, and Troy Andrews, to name a few. At the age of 12, he released his first solo album, Jazz Prodigy, which was produced by legendary trumpeter Milton Batiste.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and a former member of Munich’s Bavarian State Opera Studio, Stewart has appeared in productions of directors Christoph Loy, Richard Jones, Olivier Py, and conductors Kent Nagano, Dan Ettinger, and Maurizio Benini. He has performed for world leaders, including King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, and U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and Barack Obama.
Joshua Stewart continues to thrill audiences worldwide with his extraordinary talent, which has cemented his place as one of the premier tenors of his generation.