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 2010 Faculty
Kelly Balmaceda, a native of Southern Maryland, received her degree in Vocal
Performance from the renowned New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA.
She has received extensive vocal training and coaching from Flicka Rahn,
William Cotten, Jean Anderson- Collier, John Moriarty, Simon Carrington, and
more. She has worked as a teaching artist with The Metropolitan Opera Guild in
New York City. She has served as President of the New England Conservatory
Light Opera Company and in the Educational Outreach Department with Boston
Lyric Opera. Her performance biography includes Atalanta in Xerxes, Julie
Jordan in Carousel, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Maria in The Sound of Music,
Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Nancy in Oliver.
Having recently moved to Corpus Christi, she has performed as the soprano
soloist in Brahms' Requiem, Mozart’s Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore and Karl
Jenkin’s The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace with the Corpus Christi Chorale. She
recently made her solo debut as Frasquita in Carmen with San Antonio Opera
Company and is the Founder and Artistic Director of Sparkling
City Light Opera.
DR. ROSS C. BERNHARDT is
Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Professor of Music at Texas A&M
University-Corpus Christi, where he conducts the University Singers and teaches
applied voice. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting
from Michigan State University, and Masters and Bachelors degrees from the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Missouri,
respectively. Prior to his 2008
appointment at TAMUCC, Dr. Bernhardt served as Chair of the Music Department
and Director of Choral Activities at Lambuth University in Jackson, Tennessee.
Under his direction, the Lambuth choral program was recognized as one of the
premiere programs in the South. The Lambuth Concert Choir and Lambuth Singers
performed for the Tennessee Music Education Association and regularly toured
throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. He also served on the
faculties of Columbia College (Missouri) and Lansing Community College
(Michigan) and was a high school choral director in southwest Virginia.
For 11 years Dr. Bernhardt
served as assistant conductor for the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and was also the
bass faculty for the Berkshire Choral Festival in Santa Fe. An active baritone
soloist, Dr. Bernhardt has performed with musicians and organizations such as
the Santa Fe Opera, Dave Brubeck, San Juan Symphony, Canterbury Choral Society,
and the Santa Fe Symphony. He currently performs each summer with the Oregon
Bach Festival under the direction of Helmuth Rilling.
Dr. Bernhardt’s choral
compositions have been performed throughout the country and have been published
by Mark Foster and Hinshaw. He was the winner of the Silliman Anthem Award
competition in 2006. His research interests include the music of Arvo Pärt and
the examination of choral performance from cultural and anthropological
perspectives. Dr. Bernhardt frequently conducts workshops for high school
choirs throughout the South and Midwest. He previously served on the executive
board of the West Tennessee Vocal Music Educators Association, is a charter
member of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and is a member of TMEA,
ACDA, TCDA, NATS, ASCAP, and MENC.
Chrisi Carter is a native of South Texas, and has recently returned from
New York City. Performance credits include Laurie/Dream Laurie in Oklahoma!,
Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Miss Hannigan in Annie, Dorothy in The
Wizard of Oz, Woman #2 in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!, and Louise
in Always, Patsy Cline. Chrisi is currently Artist in Residence with the Corpus
Christi Concert Ballet, and has performed the roles of Alice in Thom Clower’s
Alice in Wonderland, Esmeralda in Mark Schneider’s Esmeralda and the Dewdrop
and Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker. She has choreographed and co-directed
the Corpus Christi Cathedral Concert Series Frost Holiday Spectacular, and has
served as choreographer for the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra’s holiday
concerts for several years. Chrisi received her B.S. in Speech-Language
Pathology from TCU and her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from NYU. She is
currently working with Coastal Bend School for the Arts to develop a movement
and music program for special needs children. Chrisi is the Vice President of
Sparkling City Light Opera.
 Marc Reynolds, Acting for Singers
 Joseph Evans has appeared as leading tenor at La Scala, Ireland's Wexford Festival, the New Israeli Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera de Nantes, Orleans, and Nancy, La Fenice in Venice, Austria's Bregenzer Festspiele, the Grand Thêatre de Genève in Switzerland, and the New York City Opera. During recent seasons, Mr. Evans sang the role of Curley in the Houston Grand Opera, Bregenz, Austria, and Washington, D.C. productions of Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men, Captain Vere in the HGO, Seattle Opera, and the New Israeli Opera productions of Billy Budd , Herod in Salome and the Prison Chaplain in Dead Man Walking with the Austin Lyric Opera, the title role in the Tokyo, Japan production of Peter Grimes , and appeared in both Eugene Onegin and The Makropulos Affair in Houston. During the last two seasons at HGO, he premiered the role of Richard Smythe in Jake Heggie's The End of the Affair and the role of General Garcia in the premiere of Daniel Catan's Salsipuedes . Upcoming appearances in Houston will include Prince Shuisky in Boris Gudonov, Arnalta in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Basilio in La Nozze di Figaro. His concert appearances include performances with the New York Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis Symphonies, the Orchestre L'Ile de France in Paris and the Radio-Symphonie Orchester of Berlin. Describing his performance as Captain Vere in Billy Budd , Theodore Deacon in the international periodical Opera wrote, "In the heat of battle, Evans' Vere was very much in command, a charismatic leader the crew of the Indomitable would credibly fight and die for. Evans conveyed such tangible impatience and irritation with Claggart's slithery accusations that the tension carried right through to Billy's violent response. At that point Evans drained all colour from his voice, powerfully devastated by the tragic import of the moment. Seattle Opera has witnessed many fine dramatic performances over the years, but few so emotionally and intellectually captivating as Joseph Evans' 'Starry' Vere." Describing his performances as Pollione, the critics said, "His luxuriant voice poured forth with a richness that raised the opera's emotional stakes." "He's a real pro who can pop out a high C on demand and create a believable character." His recent portrayal of Aschenbach in the French Production of Britten's Death in Venice was hailed in the French news media as "an interpretation of unequaled perfection. The American tenor is a magnificent artist, sensitive, expressive, intelligent, graced with a voice of great beauty, and one of the finest actors of this generation." Of his Don Ottavio in Venezuela, El Nacional praised the beauty of his singing and subtlety of his portrayal, adding that, "...his arias were the musical highlights of the evening." His most recent CD releases include Of Mice and Men in the role of Curley; Tebaldo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Beverly Sills and Tatania Troyanos; Jaquino in Beethoven's Fidelio with Jon Vickers and Teresa Kubiak; Francesco in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini with Jon Vickers and Patricia Wells; two roles, Cecil and Mr. Eager in Robert Nelson's A Room with a View on the CD, An American Voice; Eumolph in Le Rapt de Perséphone , by Andre Bon, and tenor soloist in The Unholy Sonnets of John Donne by Samuel Adler , and The Mystic Flame by Michael Horvit. Mr. Evans has been recorded on the Sony Classics, CBS Masterworks, Cybellia, Gasparo, Naxos, Vai, and Albany labels.
John Nix, Tenor, joined the voice faculty at the University of Texas
at San Antonio in the fall of 2005, where he serves as Associate Professor of
Voice, Vocal Pedagogy and Voice Research.
Previously he was Director of Education and Special Projects and
Coordinator of the Summer Vocology Institute for the National Center for Voice
and Speech in Denver, where he worked with internationally known voice
scientist and educator Dr. Ingo Titze.
Mr. Nix has also served on the music faculties of The University of
Colorado at Denver and Eastern New Mexico University. Mr. Nix holds a Master of Music Degree in Vocal Performance
from The University of Colorado at Boulder, Certification in Vocology from The
University of Iowa, and has pursued additional coursework towards the DMA
degree. At Colorado, he studied
voice and vocal pedagogy with the late Barbara Doscher and the Alexander
Technique with James Brody. Mr.
Nix was also a participant in the 1994 NATS Intern Program, where he worked
with Thomas Houser and Barbara Honn.
Prior to his studies at Colorado, he received a Bachelor of Music Degree
in Vocal Performance from The University of Georgia and a Master of Music
Degree in Arts Administration from The Florida State University. His current and former students include
a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, two Santa Fe Opera apprentices,
members of the Army Soldiers’ Chorus, a second place winner in the National
Federation of Music Clubs competition, a two-time finalist in the American
Traditions competition, and faculty members at universities in Montana, Texas,
Wyoming and New York. His work has
been funded by The San Antonio Area Foundation, The Grammy Foundation, The
University of Texas at San Antonio, and two R-13 grants from NIH. Mr. Nix was also the winner of the
NATS/Voice Foundation Van Lawrence Award in 2006. His published articles have appeared in The NATS Journal, The New
York Opera Newsletter, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Journal of
Voice, The Journal of Singing, The International Journal of Research in Choral
Singing, Vocalease, Australian Voice and
The Opera Journal. Mr. Nix is
the editor and annotator of From Studio
to Stage: Repertoire for the Voice, compiled by Barbara Doscher (Scarecrow
Press, June 2002), and is the Vocal Music section editor for the upcoming
multi-volume Oxford Handbook of Music
Education.
Webpages:
http://music.utsa.edu/faculty/jnix/index.html
http://www.classicalsinger.com/sites/index.php?pt=1&user_id=109217
Flicka Rahn is an Associate Professor
of Music at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and has also served on the
faculties of Brandeis University in Boston ,the Boston Conservatory of Music
and the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. She is active as a
performer, teacher and as a composer. Her art songs have been published in the
Southern Music Company series, “Art Songs by American Women Composers”.
As a performer, Ms. Rahn has sung major operatic roles throughout the United
States. She has appeared as a guest artist with the Boston Lyric Opera, New
York Wagner International Society, Boston concert Opera, Minnesota Grand Opera
and the San Antonio Opera to name a few. She has sung on the stages of major
concert halls both here and abroad including Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony
Hall and concert halls in Belize, Guatemala and throughout Mexico. Recitals
presenting her own compositions and American Art Song were recently given in La
Paz, Bolivia and Toledo, Spain as part of a Cultural Music Exchange. She holds
degrees from Washington University in St. Louis (B.M.E.), Texas State
University (M.M) and Texas A&M-Kingsville (M.S. in Counseling).
 DAVID RAINEY is a member of the
Alley Theatre’s Resident Company where he has performed in more than 40
productions over 10 seasons, including recent productions of Eurydice, Mauritius and Othello.
Nationally, he has performed for Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the National Actors Theatre, the Guthrie
Theatre, Joseph Papp Public Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Acting
Company, New York Shakespeare Festival, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Ford’s
Theatre, Asolo Theatre Company, Dallas Theatre Center, Shakespeare Festival LA,
Crossroads Theatre Company, the Houston Grand Opera, among others. His film and television credits include
Cosby, Law & Order, Vengeance
Unlimited, As the World Turns, One Life to Live, Hell Swarm, Starforce, Lowball, Multifacial, The 'M' Word,
North Starr, Brushing Death and Don’t
Go There.
He holds degrees from Eastern New Mexico University and The Juilliard School. At Juilliard he received the Drama Division’s
highest honor, the Michel and Suria Saint-Denis
Prize. In 2004 he was named “Best Actor” by the Houston Press for the role of Lincoln in Top Dog/Underdog at the Alley Theatre,
and also received “Best Actor” nominations from Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson (Jeff) Awards and the Black Theatre Alliance Awards for his
performance in Top Dog/Underdog at
Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In
2009 he was awarded “Best Supporting Actor in a Play” by The Houston Area Theatre Awards for Excellence,
for the role of Sterling in Mauritius
at the Alley Theatre.
Since 2005, he has
been an adjunct professor in Drama at the University of Houston/Downtown where
this year he has been named its first Artist in Residence. He has taught Master Classes for the
University of Houston Graduate Acting Program, taught acting for Law Firms,
teaches independent professional acting classes, and provides private coaching
to individuals. For the past six years
he has also been Director of the summer drama program at the Center for Success
and Independence, a residential rehabilitation center for teenagers 12-17 with
behavioral, emotional and addictive disorders.
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