NICOLE PAIEMENT
Founder, Artistic Director, and Conductor
Under Nicole Paiement’s baton, Ensemble mounted the World Premiere of Lou Harrison’s opera Young Caesar in 2007, the West Coast premiere of John Rea’s reorchestration of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in 2010, followed by performances of Philip Glass’ Orphée in February 2011 and Virgil Thomspon’s/Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts in August 2011. Upcoming productions include the world-premiere performance of the chamber version of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby. With Ensemble Parallèle, Paiement has recorded many world premieres performances, commissioned many new works from composers of various countries, and toured in North America, Australia, and Asia. Paiement will appear with Dallas Opera in March 2012.
University of California, Santa Cruz: Director, Conductor, Full Professor
Paiement is on the tenured faculty and is the Director of Ensembles at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she conducts the Opera, Orchestra, and Chamber Singers. Through her experience in teaching conducting at the graduate level, Paiement has developed an approach that concentrates on clear and expressive baton technique, combined with effective score study and rehearsal technique.
San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Annual Blue Print Project
Paiement is the Artistic Director of the BluePrint Project – a series focused on building new music for the city of San Francisco. These contemporary music events, sponsored by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, have highlighted many American living composers and culminated in various CD recordings. Over the years, BluePrint has collaborated with various organizations in the San Francisco Bay area. These have included the Pacific Rim Festival, Other Mind Festival and the International Women Composers Festival. Since 1999, Paiement also has been the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music ‘s New Music Ensemble (NME). The Ensemble has commissioned many works and has honored the accomplishments of many established contemporary music composers including George Perle, Andrew Imbrie, and Chou Wen-chung.
Opera and Multidisciplinary Projects
Paiement’s interest in both vocal and instrumental music has led her to conduct and record many world premieres of operas. She made her Korean debut conducting in 2004 the world premiere of Chan-Hae Lee’s opera
Back to the Origins and Nicola Le Fanu’s
Old Woman of Beare. Since then, she has returned to Korea on many occasions. In her interest to work on interdisciplinary projects, she has collaborated with many dancers and media artists. Through these collaborations she toured with Ensemble Parallèle in Australia in Summer 2005 and participated in the Asian-American-Australian Sound-Dance and multi-Media Connections.
Education
●DMA. Doctor of Musical Arts/Conducting, Eastman School of Music.
JACQUES DESJARDINS
General Manager
Jacques Desjardins has been the General Manager of Ensemble Parallèle since 2004. He is also the Development Manager of the BluePrint Project, a festival of new music sponsored by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Past administrative duties include the management of financial operations for the Festival of Choral Music at the University of Sherbrooke, and the supervision of artistic and financial operations for choral ensembles in Eastern Canada and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Composer
Desjardins is an active composer who has received commissions from the Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, the Arthur-LeBlanc Quartet, the Québec Youth Orchestras Association, and the Musica Nova Ensemble. His latest commissioned work
Volupté was premiered at the BluePrint Project in San Francisco under the direction of Nicole Paiement.
A frequent grant recipient from the Canada Arts Council and the Québec Council for the Arts and Letters, Desjardins also won First Prize on two occasions at the Young Composers Competition of the Society of Canadian Composers, Authors and Publishers. He has also represented Canada at the first International Forum of New Music of the Nouvel ensemble moderne, an event cosponsored by the University of Montréal, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and UNESCO.
Desjardins' music has been performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe by ensembles such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Ijsbreker Ensemble in Amsterdam. He studied composition with Bruce Mather, WIlliam Bolcom, and William Albright, and holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Michigan.
Conductor and Instructor of Music Theory
Also a conductor, Desjardins was director of the Concert Choir at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 2002 to 2007. He has founded and directed the Vocal Ensemble and New Music Ensemble at the School of Music of the University of Sherbrooke, and has appeared as guest conductor with the Musica Nova Ensemble and the Sherbooke Youth Symphony Orchestra.
He is also the principal guest-conductor for the Nøthing Set Ensemble in San Francisco. Desjardins is currently Assistant Conductor of the New Music Ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he also is on the academic faculty and teaches Music Theory and Musicianship.
Tenor
As tenor, Desjardins sang in May 2007 as soloist in Mozart's
C minor Mass with Soli Deo Gloria, and made an appearance in February 2007 in the premiere of the final version of the opera
Young Caesar by Lou Harrison. Desjardins was featured as tenor soloist on the premiere recording of
Symphonia sacra in tempore passionis by Bengt Hambraeus.
Education
●Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Composition, University of Michigan
BRIAN STAUFENBIEL
Resident Stage Director, Production Designer
Staufenbiel is the resident stage director and production designer for Ensemble Parallèle. He recently directed Ensemble Parallèle’s opera Orphée, by Philip Glass and Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thompson both in 2011; the West Coast premiere of John Rea’s reorchestration of Berg’s Wozzeck in 2010; and world premiere of Lou Harrison’s opera Young Caesar in 2007.
Director
In 2009, Staufenbiel directed the world premiere of
The Dawn Makers by Allen Shearer at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco in collaboration with Composer’s INC. Staufenbiel has also directed at the Seoul Contemporary Opera Company the Korean premiere of David Jones’ opera
Bardos and the reprise of Chan Hae Lee’s latest opera
Back to the Origin. He has also been guest director in the Sherbrooke Summer Music Festivals, where he directed works including Ravel, Honegger and the semi-staged version of Handel’s
Jephtha. Recent directing engagements have included the remounting of his concept of
Wozzeck at the Astoria Music Festival in Oregon in June 2010, and Puccini’s
Madame Butterfly for Festival Opera in Walnut Creek July 2010. He will return to Festival Opera this July for the production of
The Most Happy Fella.
Faculty – University Of California, Santa Cruz
Staufenbiel is the head of the Opera Program and is on the voice faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Directing Credits at UCSC include: Bizet’s
Carmen; Donizetti’s
L’elisir d’amore; Menotti’s
The Medium; Puccini’s
Gianni Schicchi; Mozart’s
Le nozze di Figaro,
Die Zauberflöte, and
Don Giovanni; Weill’s
Street Scene; and Britten’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for which he was awarded the first prize in the National Opera Association Opera competition in New York.
Tenor
As a tenor, he has sung the leading roles in Rossini’s
L’Italiana in Algeri, Britten’s
The Rape of Lucretia, Poulenc’s
Les mamelles de Tirésias, Ravel’s
L’enfant et les sortilèges, Weill’s
Mahagonny, and Mechem’s
Tartuffe. Staufenbiel has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Rochester Bach Festival in New York State, and sings frequently throughout the Bay Area. In addition to live performances, Staufenbiel has recorded for Musical Heritage Society; Koch International Classics; Mode Records; Helicon Records music by Alessandro Stradella; Heinrich Schütz; Lou Harrison; and Paul Bowles. His most recent recording includes the world premiere recordings of tenor arias from Lou Harrison’s opera
Young Caesar and the
Mass for the Feast of Saint Cecilia (Kleos records). The Staufenbiel/ Scharron Duo has performed from coast to coast Argento’s
Letters from Composers, set as a one-man opera. The duo recently completed a CD recording of works by Britten, Argento and Adler (commissioned work).
Education
● DMA Doctor of Vocal Performance and Literature, Eastman School of Music
MATTHEW ANTAKY
Scenic and Lighting Designer
Antaky is a seven-time nominee and four-time recipient of the Isadora Duncan award for outstanding visual design. Since 1985 Mr. Antaky has created and collaborated on both scenic and lighting designs for the performing arts including opera, dance, music and theater. His work has been seen throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Mexico. Recent designs include productions of Orphee and Wozzeck for Ensemble Parallele, A Round-Heeled Woman for Z Space Theater, La Traviata and Most Happy Fella for Festival Opera, San Francisco World Music Festival, and the awards event of The Sundance Film Festival.
matthewantakydesign.com
FRÉDÉRIC O. BOULAY
Director of Production
Boulay has worked in opera, symphony, theatre, dance and circus as director of production, project manager, technical director, and rigger in more than two hundred fifty productions in France and the United States since 1989. Recently, he has worked with Ensemble Parallèle on Four Saints in Three Acts, Orphée, and Wozzeck, and with Festival Opera, Opera San José, Opera Birmingham, Santa Barbara Opera, Lamplighters Music Theatre, Oakland East Bay Symphony, World Music Festival, and Cirque du Soleil. A native of France, he holds an MBA from the University of Utah.
oaktownproductions.com
CHRISTINE CROOK
Costume Designer
Crook has an MFA in costume design from the University of California, San Diego where her design credits include The Seagull, Topdog Underdog, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, and The Misanthrope. In addition to Ensemble Parallèle, Crook has designed in the Bay Area for Just Theatre (1001), Berkeley Playhouse (Oliver!), Willows Theatre (Dearly Beloved, The Secret Garden), Reflective Films (Opal), and Shotgun Players (In the Wound, Travesties, Owners, Cryptogram, The Just). She has served as assistant designer in productions at La Jolla Playhouse, Aurora Theatre Company, and the University of California, Berkeley Zellerbach Playhouse.
christinecrook.com
AUSTIN FORBORD
Video Artist
Forbord won the Isadora Duncan award for his design contribution to Deborah Slater’s Hotel of Memories and the Izzie for visual design. In addition to Ensemble Parallèle, he has created video designs for many performing groups including the Joe Goode Performance Group, Robert Moses' Kin and Sara Shelton Mann/Contraband. Forbord’s feature-length documentaries, Artists in Exile: A Story of Modern Dance in San Francisco and in 2011 Stage Left: A Story of Theater in San Francisco–commissioned by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation–premiered at the Riverside International Film Festival have received critical accalaim. He is the Executive Artistic Director of RAPT Productions.
raptproductions.com
JULIA HATHAWAY
Props Artisan/Assistant Stage Manager
Hathaway served as props artisan and assistant stage manager for Ensemble Parallèle’s productions of Four Saints in Three Acts, Orphée, and Wozzeck, and is the resident props artisan for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Festival Opera and the Mark Foehringer Dance Project. She can also be seen performing on stage with Opera Frontier and at both Supperclub San Francisco and Los Angeles.
JEANNA PARHAM
Wig and Makeup Designer
Parham began her career in San Jose where she designed for many South Bay theaters. Since moving to San Francisco, in addition to Ensemble Parallèle, she has been creating designs for the American Conservatory Theater; TheatreWorks; Broadway by the Bay; Alameda Civic Light Opera; University of California Santa Cruz; Opera Theater; and Sacramento Civic Light Opera. She also works regularly as guest designer for many other companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
FRANK WEISBERG
Ensemble Parallèle Administrative Assistant
Holds dual Bachelors of Arts degrees in Literature and History from the State University of New York, Purchase College, and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the California College of Arts, where he was the recipient of the Alumni Heritage Scholarship. Prior to joining Ensemble Parallèle, Weisberg worked as a part of editorial teams for a variety of print publications in both New York and California.
