Guest Faculty

Hein Hoogendoorn, pianist

Hein Hoogendoorn graduated cum laude as soloist from the music conservatory of  Groningen, the Netherlands.  He specialized in chamber music, in  which he performed both in Holland and abroad.  He is co-founder of the opera ensemble Tosca, the tango group Tangueros and the cabaret program "Cantharide".  He also accompanies and coaches many vocalists and performs, among other places, in the legendary restaurant Pasta e basta in Amsterdam.  He has been involved as coach and pianist since 1998 with the chamber opera company Opera Minora.

Claudia Christern, director

After completing her study in the field of cultural history, Claudia Christern interned with The Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam and the Deutsche Staatoper in Berlin.  She was assistant director, among others, with Opera South and the Belcanto Festival in Dordrecht.  Since 1997 she has directed operetta, musical and theater productions both at home in Holland and abroad.

Claudia is also employed as a teacher and has developed an acting and training course for singers.  In 1998 she founded the chamber opera company Opera Minora, which performs both inside and outside of the Netherlands.  While studying, Claudia worked as a "singing servant" at the restaurant Pasta e basta.  During that period, she became acquainted with Linda Rands when she took singing lessons from her. 

Ilse van de Kasteelen, song coach

Soprano Ilse van de Kasteelen can be heard regularly as soloist in oratorios, recitals and musical theatre.  After her conservatory education at the Amsterdam and Hilversum Conservatory, she studied with Herman Woltman, Max van Egmond and Kevin Smith.  She sang Dutch and world premieres, made radio, CD and television recordings and could be heard at numerous festivals.  Van de Kasteelen is also a composer.  She composed music for productions of Taller Amsterdam, including 2 operas (Los Heraldos and The Sting of the Scorpion).  Recently she premiered a composition for choir and 5 low strings as well as her song cycle Serenade de retour for bass-baritone and piano.  Furthermore, Van de Kasteelen works as song pedagogue, among others at the Dance Academy Lucia Marthas, in the division show/musical, and gives workshops in the area of breathing, vocal technique, singing (solo and ensemble), improvisation and music theatre.  She directs a few ensembles in classical and light music.

Philip Curtis, director

Philip Curtis (1952) was born in London and studied music at York University.  He began his professional performing career as an opera singer, studying with Otrakar Kraus and Mino Campanino.  He has specialized in contemporary music theatre, working with such composers as Luciano Berio, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Bernard Rands and Stephen Sondheim.  He has also been a soloist in musicals, including Chess in London’s West End and the Royal National Theatre’s award-winning production of Sweeney Todd (Sondheim).  In 1997 he co-founded Music Theatre Group Amsterdam and wrote and directed, The Sofa (1998) and Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? (2000). He directed the Netherlands première of Thomas Adès’ opera Powder her Face and recently, a new musical, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Elsewhere he has written and directed Een Seizoen in de Hel for the Basho Ensemble and Trom’s Day Off for Slagwerkgroep Den Haag and new versions of Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor and Donizetti’s Rita for the Covent Garden Festival.  He is an internationally recognized teacher of music theatre and drama for singers, actors and instrumentalists. He is Head of Drama of the singing department of the Conservatorium of Amsterdam and is attached to the De Nieuwe Opera Academie. He is also visiting drama teacher at The Utrecht Conservatorium, Trinity College of Music and The Royal Academy of Music, London and York University.

Shai Lifschitz, pianist

Shai Lifshitz (Poria, Israel - 1966) began to play piano when he was 7 years old.  He took lessons from Tova Rat at the Petach Tiqwa conservatory, and in 1978 began composition lessons from Lev Kogan, Arik Shapira and Marc Kopitman.  In 1986 he won a bursary that allowed him to take lessons from the well-know pianist Yonathan Zak at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv.  In 1989 Shai came to The Netherlands.  He studied composition with Peter-Jan Wagemans, Klass de Vries and Geert van Keulen, and continued his piano study with Hans Dercksen.  Since then he has taught piano at various music schools, and is also the accompanist and arranger for the men's choir Manoeuvre.  He has worked on various musical and theatre productions (e.g., Miss Saigon, Oliver! and Anatevka).  Shai has written a great deal of chamber music, but also operas and a few orchestral works.  In 2001 he worked with composer Toek Numan in the work Domino for ensemble De Ereprijs and flute trio Tegenwind, and in 2002 he completed his 24-part piano work The Lover's Catalogue, inspired by the Don Juan theme, which he premiered in September 2005 in Amsterdam.

Benoît Debrock, conductor

Benoît Debrock studied orchestral direction with Ed Spanjaard and Jac van Steen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.  He is an all-around conductor who works in opera as well as symphonic music.  In 1998 he co-founded the opera company Opera Minora and has been the musical leader for most of their productions.  Opera Minora has premiered a number of 20th-century one-act operas as well as unknown 18th-century chamber operas, one of which was recorded for Japanese television.  Furthermore, he has made radio programs for the Dutch broadcaster NCRV and was a guest on the program Traveler in Music.  In 2002 he was the musical leader of Bizet and Brooks' La Trágedie de Carmen with Opera Trionfo; in 2003 he directed the world premiere of the opera The Call of the Conch Shell (music Bart Visman, text Paul Biegel), which was performed, among other venues, in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.  He also made his debut in 2003 at the National Theater in Weimar, Germany, with Benjamin Britten's Curlew River.

IN MEMORIAM (28/7/1954 - 12/9/2005)

John Riley-Schofield, song coach

John Riley-Schofield began his musical education at the age of nine with piano lessons and choral singing.  He was accepted as a first study pianist at the Huddersfield School of Music and planned a career in teaching.  He began to take singing lessons as a baritone and was invited onto the performer's course at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he worked with Raimund Herincx and Peter Harrison.  After three years at the RAM he was engaged by the English National Opera where he spent time in the chorus and sang many smaller roles.  After a year in Amsterdam with the Netherlands Opera he took the principal baritone position with the opera house in Gelsenkirchen (Germany).   Outside the opera house his concert repertoire is astonishingly large, encompassing Bach, Händel, Mozart, Haydn, Elgar, Walton, Saint-Saens, Brahms and many more composers.  His singing of Lieder has been lauded for musicianship and atmosphere, and he was awarded a theatre prize for his reading of Schumann's Dichterliebe.   Since 2002 he has held the position of assistant professor of voice at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.  John's web address is www.riley-schofield.com.