Sen Guo is a Swiss-Chinese Soprano singer and associate dean of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She made her international music debut in Queen of the Night at the Semperoper Dresden, and since the premiere, she has made numerous appearances in Germany, including Unter den Linde, the Deutsche Oper Berlin. From 2002 to 2020, as a member of the ensemble of the Zurich Opera House, she collaborated with renowned composers such as Zubin Mehta, Nello Santi, Christoph von Dohnányi, Franz Welser-Möst, Ádám Fischer, Muhai Tang, Fabio Luisi, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Her representative roles include Queen of the Night in <The Magic Flute>, Oscar in < Un Ballo in Maschera>, Frasquita in <Carmen>, Flower Girl in <Parsifal>, Gilda in <Rigoletto>, Musetta in <La Boheme>, and Nanetta in <Falstaff>, among which she performed at the Shanghai Grand Theater as Gilda in <Rigoletto>. In July 2012, she was also invited to perform in the opening concert of the Salzburg Festival New Season. She is greatly acclaimed for her recitals and chamber music productions, performing oratorio and concert repertoire, including Requiems by Schumann, Mozart and Fauré, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater.

Michael Heaston is a respected casting director, artistic administrator, collaborative pianist, and vocal coach who has established himself as one of opera’s most influential leaders, visionaries, and mentors. Mr. Heaston currently serves as Artistic Administrator at the Metropolitan Opera, where he manages all activities of the Artistic Department. In this role, he is responsible for casting, repertoire selection, and artistic planning. Previously, he held concurrent faculty positions in the opera department at Rice University and as sound director at the Houston Grand Opera Studio. He held executive positions with the Met’s Linderman Young Artists Program, the Kalfritz Young Artists Program, and the American Opera Initiative and Advisor to the Artistic Director at Washington National Opera. He was also the Assistant Artistic Director of the Glimmerglass Festival and Head of Music Staff at Dallas Opera. He has been a frequent judge for international vocal competitions and has presented numerous master classes. He also has a distinguished concert career, collaborating with many artists, including Christine Goerke, Stephen Costello, Eric Owens, Ailyn Pérez, Dolora Zajick, among others.

Gregory Henkel is a Managing Director of Artistic at San Francisco Opera. In this role, he is responsible for repertoire selection, casting, and concert program production, managing the Artistic Music Department, and training the San Francisco Opera Center Young Artists. His current responsibilities also include the organization’s search for a new Sound Director, Chorus Director, and Opera Center Leadership Team. Prior to joining the San Francisco Opera in 2008, he was Artistic Planning Manager at the Los Angeles Opera, where his responsibilities included casting and concert programming, and served as Associate Artistic Administrator at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He also judged international vocal competitions around the world, including the Seoul International Music Competition, the Giovanni Martinelli-Aureliano Fertile Competition in Montagnana, and the Ottavio Gino International Opera Competition in Rome. A native New Yorker, Mr. Gregory Henkel has a master’s degree in music from DePaul University in Chicago and graduated summa cum laude from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He also studied at the Juilliard School and New England Conservatory of Music. Before embarking upon a professional career in music, Gergory served for several years in project management with Morgan Stanley in New York, NY.

Etsuko Kanoh studied at Tokyo University of the Arts, Musikhochschule Cologne in Germany, and she was under an exclusive contract with Cologne Operahouse until 1994. After winning second prize at the Mozart International Music Competition in Salzburg in 1995, she came to international attention from leading European opera houses, including the Stuttgart Opera, Flanders Opera, and Salzburg Festival. She performs with Japan’s leading orchestras, performing a wide range of music from classical to contemporary, where her concert repertoire includes alto solos in Bach’s religious pieces and Mahler’s <Das Lied von der Erde>, and in 2022, she performed Chopin’s <Poèm de l’amour et de la mer>, a richly expressive piece of French music. She has also performed the roles of Cordelia in <Giulio Cesare in Egitto> and the Inspector in <Dream of Armageddon>, which premiered by request at the Tokyo New National Theater, meaning that her operatic repertoire extends from the Baroque to the present day. In addition, she has released recordings such as <Poems of Queen Maria Stuart> and <Alban Berg’s Early Lieder>, and continues to perform recitals focusing on German lieder. She has long been dedicated to post-graduate training at Tokyo’s Kunitachi College of Music, and has been an active member of the Japan Music Association since 2016, where she works to support young vocalists.

Kathleen Kim received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and is a former Chicago Opera Young Artist. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 2007 as a main vocalist and has performed with many of the world’s leading opera companies, orchestras, and conductors around the world, including the Wiener Staatsoper in Germany, Gran Teatre del Liceu, BBC Proms in the UK, Glyndebourne Festival, Rome Opera in Italy, National Opera in Paris, La Monnaie in Belgium, etc. She has also released a solo album <Con Amores>, in which she sings with guitar accompaniment. Kathleen Kim’s major works include the operas <A Midsummer Night’s Dream>, <The Hoffman Tales>, <Nixon in China>, <Der Rosenkavalier>, <La fille du regiment>, <Magic Flute>, <Cinderella> and many others. She is currently a professor at Hanyang University’s College of Music, where she is working to foster future generations of musicians.

Sanggeun Shin was remarked by the press as “an artist who moves the hearts of the audience with his stable and colorful sound” with Edgardo role in the opera <Lucia di Lammermoor>. Since then, he has performed <Turandot>, <Carmen>, <Tosca>, <Un Ballo in Maschera>, <Madama Butterfly>, <La Boheme>, <La Traviata>, <Don Carlo>, <Lucia di Lammermoor>, <Rigoletto>, <Boris Godunov> and many others at leading theaters in Berlin, Stuttgart, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Dortmund, Münster, Weimar, Champs-Élysées, Rennes, Lucerne, Switzerland, Bergen, Norway, and Athens, Greece.
Last season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, he sang the opening night of Romeo et Juliette under the baton of Plácido Domingo, earning rave reviews from the New York Times as the first Asian Romeo. Mr. Sanggeun Shin has also distinguished himself by winning prizes in international competitions, including Voci Verdiane, Hans Gabor Belvedere, Montserrat Caballé, Riccardo Zandonai, Titto Gobbi, and Ferruccio Tagliavini. He has been awarded the Volksbühnen Bühnentaler and the NRW Best Singer Award. He has released recordings such as Wilhelm Kintzl’s <Das Testament> with the Bruckner Orchestra, and is also active in opera, performing oratorios with the Berliner Philharmonie and the operettas <Die Fledermaus> and <Das Land des Lächelns>.
Mr. Sanggeun Shin has collaborated with world-renowned conductors, including Carlo Ricci, Dennis Russell Davies, and Gianandrea Nozenda. Upcoming performances include <Turandot> at the Düsseldorf State Theater, <Tosca> at the Leipzig State Theater, and <Don Carlo> at the Helsinki State Theater. He studied under Professor Youngjo Shin at Hanyang University’s Department of Vocal Music and attended top performer programs at the Novara National Conservatory in Italy, the La Scala Theater Academy, the Mozarteum Salzburg in Austria, the Hochschule für Musik Dresden in Germany, and the Conservatoire Huygmans in France.
He is currently a professor at Kyung-Hee University and is committed to fostering a future generation of vocalists.

John Treliven is a Holden tenor in demand by major international opera houses. He received rave reviews for his portrayal of Stolzing at the Bavarian State Opera Festival in Munich. As Lohengrin, he has appeared at the Vienna State Opera, the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, the Hamburg State Opera, and in Gothenburg and Amsterdam. As Tannhäuser, he captivated the public and press at the Hamburg State Opera and the Graz Opera House. He studied at the London College of Music with William Lloyd Webber, among others, and gained experience at the London Opera Centre, Covent Garden, and Naples. Initially, he sang in his native country at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, Scottish National Opera, and English National Opera, studying for many roles, including the Prince in <Rusalka> and Hans in <The Bartered Bride> at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1991, he made his debut at the Mannheim National Theater in Germany as Peter Grimes to great acclaim. John’s repertoire includes roles such as Bacchus in <Ariadne auf Naxos>, Canio in <I Pagliacci>, and Calaf in <Turandot>, while constantly adding new roles. Recently, he performed <Idomeneo>

Annette Weber studied theatre and musicology in Mainz, gaining experience as an assistant director at the same time and was engaged at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe until 2004. At the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, she then held the same position until 2010, and between 2010 and 2016, she worked regularly with Stefan Herheim in Berlin, Bayreuth and Salzburg, among other places. From 2013 to 2018, she worked as a consultant for the Artistic Administrative Director of the Semperoper Dresden, where she was mainly responsible for artistic affairs and casting. In 2018, she became the Casting Director of Staatsoper Hamburg. She is currently working as the opera director of Opernhaus Zurich since 2021.