Juliana Gondek, Founder & Artistic Director

Since launching her European career with back-to-back gold medals in the Geneva and Barcelona International Competitions, Juliana Gondek has sung on the world's most celebrated stages with more than 150 orchestras and opera companies. Her 35-year career has spanned the classical, jazz, Broadway, and cabaret repertoire and she has sung with Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Carlos Kleiber, Rudolf Serkin, Yehudi Menuhin, and Nicholas McGegan. Specializing in Baroque, Mozart, Bel Canto, Verdi, Richard Strauss, and 20th/21st-century opera and song, she's performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Opera, Disney Hall, the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, and Milan's La Scala.

Recordings include prize-winning CDs and DVDs: four Handel operas with Nicholas McGegan, the opera Harvey Milk, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte from the Metropolitan Opera, operatic scenes with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, orchestral songs in Mandarin by Chinese composer Bright Sheng, the complete Szymanowski songs in Polish, songs of Roger Bourland and Bruce Babcock (Parma Records 2013 and 2015), and her motion picture debut as "The Opera Diva" in Masterpiece Theatre's "Song of the Lark." Active as a recitalist, she has sung in Carnegie Recital Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall, Venice's Teatro La Fenice, Berlin's National Library, Japan's Kitara Hall, Lucerne Festival Hall, Geneva's Grand Théâtre, Aldeburgh Festival Hall, New York's Metropolitan Art Museum and Guggenheim Museum, the Vanderbilt mansion "The Breakers" in Newport, and Los Angeles's Ambassador Auditorium and Schoenberg Hall.

Ms. Gondek has taught as Professor of Voice at UCLA since 1997.  She is the Founder-Director of the NAPA Music Festival (Napa Valley, CA) and has directed young artist training programs at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, Oregon's Astoria Music Festival, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, SongFest, and Idyllwild.  She has taught extended series of master classes in artist residencies with New Zealand Opera and at the top conservatories of Shanghai, Geneva, Florence, and Hong Kong, as well as at the University of Waikato (New Zealand) and in New York City, San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, and she frequently judges major national and international competitions. Her students regularly gain entry into top Young Artist programs, such as LA Opera, AVA, Lindemann, Merola, Santa Fe, Solti Accademia, Glimmerglass, Wolf Trap, etc.) and perform with the world's great symphonies and opera companies, on Broadway, and in top jazz, rock, pop, and country music venues. www.julianagondek.com

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