Chilean mezzo-soprano Graciela Araya began her career as a company member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Vienna State Opera. She is equally successful in Italian, French and German repertoire and has been internationally acclaimed as Carmen, Charlotte, Dalila, Santuzza, Amneris, Laura, Adalgisa, Kundry and Venus, as well as for her interpretations of Handel, Gluck and Monteverdi.

She has sung at the New York Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden London, Opéra Bastille Paris, the Teatro Regio Torino, the Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, La Monnaie Brussels, the Stuttgart State Opera, Teatro La Fenice Venice, Frankfurt Opera, and the opera houses of Santiago de Chile and Sao Paolo and has worked with outstanding conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Antonio Pappano, Gabriele Ferro and directors such as Pierre Audi, David McVicar, Herbert Wernicke and Cesare Lievi.

Romanian soprano Adina Nitescu studied at the George Enescu Music Academy in Bucharest with Prof. Georgeta Stoleriu. She won the Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition in 1991 and the Pavarotti International Voice Competition in 1992.

Thus began an international career that has taken her to the most prestigious opera houses worldwide, including the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro allla Scala Milan, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Bregenz Festival, the Maggio Musicale Florence, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Vienna and Berlin State Opera, the Tokyo New National Theater and many others.

She has worked with many of the world's most renowned conductors, including Riccardo Muti, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Philippe Jordan, as well as directors such as Robert Wilson, Robert Carsen, Andreas Homoki, Renata Scotto, Pier Luigi Pizzi and David Pountney.

As a recognized and very successful voice teacher, Adina Nitescu coaches after singers in theaters such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Teatro Real in Madrid. She has studios in Berlin and Geneva.

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American soprano Janet Williams is uniquely qualified to teach singers and coach performers, having won international critical acclaim for performances in leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Berlin Staatsoper, Paris Opera, Opera de Lyon, Nice Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Geneva Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Cologne Opera, Leipzig Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington Opera, Dallas Opera, and Michigan Opera Theatre. Her repertoire covers the epochs from Baroque to Contemporary and she has performed over 40 leading roles in the lyric – coloratura repertoire. Janet Williams enjoys equal success on the world’s concert stages with renowned conductors, such as Daniel Barenboim, Philippe Herreweghe, René Jacobs, Raymond Leppard, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Sir Neville Marriner, Kent Nagano, Donald Runnicles, Gerald Schwarz, Patrick Summers and Michael Tilson Thomas. Her recordings and television appearances are numerous and she was a featured performer in the Oscar-winning documentary film In the Shadow of the Stars.

Janet Williams has studied and trained voices for more than 30 years, earning Bachelor degrees in both Music Education and Vocal Performance from Michigan State University and a Masters in Vocal Performance from Indiana University, where she was an Assistant Instructor under Professor Camilla Williams. She has taught master classes across the United States, in London, Paris and Berlin. Her instructors and mentors have included world-renowned singers Professor Camilla Williams, Regine Crespin, Kammersängerin Helen Donath, Kammersängerin Brigitte Eisenfeld, Kammersängerin Reri Grist and noted international vocal pedagogue David Jones.

In 2006 Janet Williams founded Performance Enhancement by Design to inspire emerging young artists and professional singers alike to develop untapped performance potential. She is the author of Nail Your Next Audition and a professor at the HMT Rostock and the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin.

The Berlin bass Markus Hollop received his basic musical training as a boy soprano in the Staats- und Domchor Berlin and as solo horn player in various Berlin youth orchestras. He studied concert and opera singing at the Munich University of Music with Prof. Josef Loibl and started an international career at an early age, which took him to the largest European opera houses and festivals, such as the Bavarian State Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Teatro del Liceu Barcelona,  the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. He has worked with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, John Eliot Gardiner, Kent Nagano, James Conlon, Donald Runnicles and Zubin Mehta, as well as directors such as Peter Konwitschny, Andreas Homoki, Damiano Michieletti, Nicolas Joel, Peter Stein and Robert Carsen. His repertoire includes all the great romantic roles of the German, French and Italian bass repertoire, as well as a lot of contemporary music, which has been a special concern of his since the beginning of his career (for example, he made his debut as a singer at the 1st Munich Biennale for Modern Music Theatre in 1988) as well as a lot of song and concert repertoire. For the CD recording of "Doktor Faust" (Ferruccio Busoni) under the direction of Kent Nagano he was awarded a Gramophone Award ("Grammy") in 2001.

After completing a master's degree in cultural management at the University of Zurich, Markus Hollop has been working at the Grand Théâtre de Genève as "Chargé de production artistique et casting" since the 2016/17 season.

Possessing a range of more than three octaves, the repertoire of world-renowned American soprano Laura Aikin embraces works from the Baroque to the contemporary and makes her a highly sought-after artist the world’s major opera houses and concert halls. She began her career as a company member at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin (1992-98) under the artistic direction of Daniel Barenboim and has since become a regular guest at the leading opera houses worldwide such as the Vienna State Opera, La Scala Milano, Bavarian State Opera, Opernhaus Zurich, Netherlands Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Semperoper Dresden, Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, Opera Frankfurt, Chicago Lyric Opera, Santa Fe Opera, San Francisco Opera and Metropolitan Opera New York and important festivals such as Salzburg.

Highly in demand as a concert singer, Laura Aikin performs with orchestras such as the Berlin, Munich and Vienna Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago and Vienna Symphonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the WDR, SWR and MDR Radio Symphony Orchestras as well as with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Les Arts Florissants, Concerto Köln and Concentus Musicus Wien.

She appeared with leading conductors as Claudio Abbado, Alain Altinoglou, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Martin Brabbins, Sylvain Cambreling, William Christie, Christoph von Dohnányi, Iván Fischer, Mikko Franck, Daniele Gatti, Michael Gielen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hrůša, René Jacobs, Fabio Luisi, Kent Nagano, Zubin Mehta, Cornelius Meister, Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, Helmuth Rilling, Donald Runnicles, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Michael Tilson Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst. 

Among her many recent successes are Emilia Marty in Janáček´s Vec Makropulos at the Vienna State Opera, Henze´s Elegie für junge Liebende / Elegy for young lovers at the Theater an der Wien. Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) with Iván Fischer in Budapest, at the Edinburgh Festival and New York, Lulu in Paris and at the Lyon Opera, La Scala and the Wiener Festwochen, Rossini’s Semiramide in Naples, Strauss´ Aithra (Die ägyptische Helena) and Mozart´s Don Giovanni (Donna Anna) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Zimmermann´s Die Soldaten at La Scala. 

Her many acclaimed recordings include Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, DVDs of Lulu (Opernhaus Zurich), Henze´s L’Upupa and Die Entführung aus dem Serail (both from the Salzburg Festival) and Dialogues des Carmélites with Riccardo Muti (La Scala), a solo recording of Songs and Cycles by Rorem with pianist Donald Sulzen (Orfeo) as well as Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge and his Missa solemnis - both under the baton of Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Sony Music). Most recently, a widely acclaimed recording of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus with Laura Aikin as Rosalinde appeared (Pentatone) – recorded with the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Lawrence Foster.

Pianist & Coach

Born in Canton, Ohio, William Girard began playing the piano at the age of seven. Even as a teenager, he also learned trumpet, cello, and organ in his hometown and took singing lessons. In addition, he played in various orchestras and participated in theater productions. He studied composition at the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music with Loris Chobanian and won prizes as an organist and for his compositions. He studied conducting with Anshel Brusilow and organ with Donald Willing at the University of North Texas in Austin.

He completed his studies with a PhD at the University of Texas, Austin with Walter Ducloux. In Austin, William Girard was musical director of the Capitol City Opera, where he conducted La Traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, Rigoletto and I Pagliacci. For the Gilbert and Sullivan Society Austin he also conducted Ruddigore, Trial by Jury, and Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Austin Lyric Opera.

He was also assistant and organ soloist with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. In 1989, William Girard conducted the world premiere of Bizet's early one-act opera La maison du docteur, which he had edited and orchestrated.

In 1991 he was engaged as a solo repetiteur and conductor at the Stuttgart State Opera. There he conducted Haydn's Il mondo della luna and Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. He gave guest appearances at the Lyric Opera of Dallas with Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers and also worked at the Stuttgart Staatsballet, the SWR Choir, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, the Teatro Real de Madrid, the Opéra du Rhin Strasbourg, and the Ludwigsburg Festival.

Pianist & Coach

The Australian pianist, coach and conductor Scott Curry studied piano with the Schnabel student Nancy Weir at the Queensland Conservatory of Music. Center of his work is Berlin, where he held a teaching assignment at the University of the Arts as assistant to Harald Stamm and Siegfried Lorenz.
On the concert podium and master classes he has collaborated with such distinguished singers as Doris Soffel, Jochen Kowalski, Ruthild Engert, Karsten Mewes, David Wakeham, William Matteuzzi and Irina Gavrilovici.
He has worked at major Australian theaters and opera houses - ia. as the head of music of the West Australian Opera Perth - and has performed at major Australian festivals. As accompanist and chamber musician he performed at the Berliner Staatsoper, the Dresden Festival of Contemporary Music and the Berliner Festwochen.
As a conductor he has performed with Baroque and contemporary repertoire at the Stuttgart State Opera, the Komische Oper, the Düsseldorf 6-Day Opera Festival, the Music Academy Rheinsberg, the Herrenhausen Festival and conducted the Berlin premières of Prokofievs Maddalena, Handel's Amadigi di Gaula and the European première of Gordon Kerry’s Medea.

Doriana Tchakarova made her mark with international competition successes, award-winning CD recordings and appearances on important concert stages in Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hannover, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Lugano, and at the Oxford Lied Festival. She performs regularly with artists such as Mirella Hagen, Samuel Hasselhorn, Natalie Karl, Matthias Klink, Kostantin Krimmel and Sarah Wegener and is now considered one of the most outstanding collarborative pianists of the new generation. She  is also acclaimed as a concert pianist, chamber musician and soloist, with significant prizes and international successes to her credit.

Her CDs with the soprano Judith Erb and Felicitas Erb at ARS were well received across Europe and were nominated for the Echo Prize in 2017. Her CD with ballads by Schubert, Loewe, Schumann at Alpha Classics with Konstantin Krimmel was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) and awarded the Diapason découverte.

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Stagecraft

Nina Kühner was born in Bad Hersfeld and studied Drama, New German Literature and Communication Sciences in Munich. Already during her studies she worked as a freelance assistant director at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz In 1997 she was hired as assistant director for the theater's festival. In 1999 she moved to the Nuremberg Opera for two years as an assistant director and stage manager and returned to Munich in 2001 in the same position. She worked with directors Hellmuth Matiasek, Wolfgang Gropper, Harry Kupfer, Olivier Tambosi, Rosamund Gilmore and Claus Guth. For Claus Guth, she directed the revival of his production of Der Wildschütz at the Nuremberg Opera in 2001, and in 2009 she revived his Basel production of Il barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini at the Leipzig Opera.

Nina Kühner gave her debut as a director at the Nuremberg Opera in 2002 with the world premiere of the children's opera Ich bin Du or the Robbery of Futurina by Elena Mendoza-Lopéz, commissioned by the Dresden Center for Contemporary Music. This was followed by productions for the International Chamber Music Festival Nuremberg: The Rape of Lucretia (2003) and The Turn of the Screw (2004) by Britten and Dido and Aeneas (2006) by Purcell.

In 2009, Nina Kühner staged Donizetti's opera VIVA LA MAMMA! at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz Munich. At the Salzburg State Theater she directed  L`ELISIR D`AMORE by Donizetti in 2010, for which she was awarded the Audience Award for the most popular production in music theater 2010/2011.

For the International Chamber Music Festival Nuremberg in 2011 she staged Britten's OWEN WINGRAVE, to acclaim from the press and audiences alike.

In the season 2011/2012 she revived Guth's Basel production of Rossini's BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA fat the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and staged Handel's IMENEO at the Salzburg State Theater. For the International Chamber Music Festival Nuremberg 2012, she directed the music theater evening MAL HERE ONCE - BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE, followed in 2013 by the musical DRACULA at the Bavarian Theater Academy August Everding in Munich.

After her success at the Theater Trier, where Nina Kühner made her house debut in the 2014/15 season with Mozart's LA CLEMENZA DI TITO, she staged Rossini's LA SCALA DI SETA at the Theater Bielefeld in 2015/16.

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Anisa Kureishi began training in Chinese contemporary Wushu in 2000. When her family moved to Germany, she switched to competitive kickboxing under the instruction of Olaf Essing. Upon relocating to Beijing in 2005, she resumed Chinese Wushu, and trained intensely in contemporary Northern Long-fist as well as northern Shaolin Kungfu. She began Chen-style Tai Ji, in Singapore moving to Berlin in 2014. She currently practices Shaolin Kungfu under the teaching of Grand Master Shi Yan Lin. She currently studies Philosophy and Physics at Harvard University.

With her neurocentric training, Luise Walther is causing a stir in the health and fitness industry. Her focus is on the individualization and professionalization of training processes in order to reduce pain and optimize movement sequences. The specialist for rehabilitation, injury prevention and performance improvement focuses on a holistic view of physical performance. The central basis of her neurocentric work is the knowledge that movement, pain and performance arise in the brain. For this reason, Luise Walther is convinced that training must be radically rethought and implemented. Only a few trainers in Germany have their expertise and international qualifications, which is why well-known companies and media count on their expert opinion.

Master your leading voice

I am a trained opera singer and was a scholarship holder at this academy myself. I know how demanding, intense, and crucial this time is: You stand in front of conductors, directors, artistic directors—and at the same time, in front of yourself. What I lacked back then is now my profession: a space for inner clarity, for self-leadership—and for the voice that emerges from this attitude.

In addition to my work at the academy, I work with leaders from business, the arts, and society—with people who need to show themselves, make decisions, and carry what they radiate. I bring precisely this perspective to artistic education. In my work, I combine vocal bodywork, mental alignment, and personal presence.

Technique gets you on stage. Posture takes you further. My method "Voice – Body – Human" is aimed at singers who don't just want to sing—but also want to lead, decide, and express themselves with clarity. Anyone who wants to live this profession fulfillingly needs a voice that knows what it stands for.

Zenaida des Aubris has more than 30 years of professional experience in the field of opera and classical music administration and production. Her work covers most aspects of the work behind the scenes - from artistic direction (San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera from Chicago, Palau de les Arts Valencia) to the personal management of two classical music  superstars (stage director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and conductor Lorin Maazel), to the her own agency for opera singers, as well as the project management of several productions such as the legendary Turandot in the Forbidden City in China and the Rachlin and Friends Festival in Croatia, where she was in charge of marketing, sponsorships and public relations.

Zenaida has worked with the singers of the “Neue Stimmen” competition, the Ryan Center at Lyric Opera in Chicago, Music Academy in Estonia, etc. Now she works with singers all over the world online via her webseite www.operacareercoach.com.

Mittelsächsisches Theater; Landestheater Mecklenburg; Stuttgart State Opera

The operatic repertoire of Angelo Raciti encompases a wide range of lyric and lirico spito roles: Don José in Bizet's Carmen, Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème, the title roles in Mozart's Idomeneo and Gounod's Faust, and Alfredo and Fenton in Verdi's Traviata and Falstaff. His operetta repertoire includes Sou-Chong in Lehar's The Land of Smiles, Stanislaus in Zellers Der Vogelhändler, as well as the Duke of Urbino and Alfred in Johann Strauss's Night in Venice and Die Fledermaus. With the title roles in Monteverdi's Orfeo and Il ritorno d 'Ulisse in Patria, he has also emerged in the field of ancient music.

Since 2004 he has performed in numerous large concert halls in addition to his engagements at the Mittelächsische Theater Freiberg and the Mecklenburg Landestheater, such as Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Berliner Konzerthaus, Stadthalle Kassel, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Nikolaisaal Potsdam, Konzerthaus Freiburg, the Musikhalle Hamburg, as well as in the Victoria Hall Geneva.

His concert repertoire ranges from Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda to Rossini's Petite Mass Solenelle and Mendelssohn's Elias to Kodalys Psalmus hungaricus. Angelo Raciti studied English and German in Basel, Zurich and Berlin and was a member of the graduate program at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin.

At the same time he studied singing privately, first as a baritone, then as a tenor with KS Ruggiero Orofino and in masterclasses with William Matteuzzi and KS Karan Armstrong. He made his stage debut at the Berlin University of the Arts as Zhivny in Janacek's rarely performed opera Osud (Fate). He works as a language coach at the Stuttgart State Opera and is a faculty member of the Opera Program at the Stuttgart School of Music and the Peforming Arts.

Angelo Raciti has been Artistic Director of the Lotte Lehmann Woche since 2003, since 2009 the Lotte Lehmann Akademie.

Eva is a carpenter, artist and cultural manager, horse enthusiast, systemic consultant and burnout prevention coach as well as partner, friend and daughter. She loves cooking and unfortunately also cigarettes...but above all she is a human being - usually cheerful, quite organized, and highly committed - responsible for the organization of the Lotte Lehmann Akademie.

She will be happy to help you with any questions or problems.