ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, WILLENE GUNN served as a member of the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for 30 years, as Director of the Conservatory Opera Program. Upon her retirement in the spring of 2005 the Conservatory conferred upon her the honorary degree of Doctor of Music. Ms. Gunn taught voice at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and staged operas in workshops at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Nevada.  She directed over 90 major works by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Bernstein and other major composers for Nevada, Sacramento, Arizona Operas, Rogue Opera and the San Francisco Opera Center and other companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.  A graduate of the San Francisco Opera Merola Program, Ms. Gunn performed extensively on the West Coast as a dramatic mezzo-soprano with the San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Oakland and Nevada Opera companies in Aida, Falstaff, Peter Grimes, The Medium, The Consul and numerous others. Her symphonic repertory included Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She performed in operetta, musical comedy and legitimate theater, in roles ranging from most of the mezzo-soprano roles in Gilbert and Sullivan, the alto leads in The Sound of Music, Carousel, and South Pacific, and as Hecuba in The Trojan Women.  She produced and directed over 35 productions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and in 2000 the Conservatory awarded her the Sarlo Award for Excellence in Teaching. While at the Conservatory, she directed over 100 scenes a year in the opera workshops. 

In southern Oregon, Ms. Gunn served as Artistic Director of Rogue Opera from 2006-2009 directing the highly-acclaimed Merry Wives of Windsor, The Magic Flute and La Bohème. She co-created Rogue Opera’s Opera in the Schools program OperAntics! and created, directed and produced three Opera Workshop with Voices from the Valley Opera Scenes Concerts during her tenure. Ms. Gunn’s textbook, Teaching Opera, The Role of the Opera Workshop …With Scene Catalogue, written in partnership with Kathryn Cathcart, was published by Leyerle Press in February, 2008.

CONDUCTOR, MARTIN MAJKUT

Martin Majkut, Music Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra in Queens, New York and the Rogue Valley Symphony in Ashland, Oregon, was named a 2016 Emerging Artist by the League of American Orchestras. Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), Martin graduated from the State Conservatory and served as Assistant Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic while earning his Ph.D. in conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts. He worked with the Slovak Philharmonic, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic and Slovak Sinfonietta, among others.

Martin came to the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar in 2003 and earned a D.M.A., his second doctorate, in 2008, at the University of Arizona. He served as Resident Conductor of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra and the Arizona Opera Studio Artist in Conducting. He also studied with Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy and Salvador Mas Conde at the Wiener Meisterkurse in Vienna, Austria.

Martin has served as Music Director of the Rogue Valley Symphony (RVS) in Ashland, Oregon since 2010. The RVS has experienced a remarkable growth under his leadership and is enjoying an unprecedented level of support and enthusiasm in the community. The orchestra's budget has more than doubled during his tenure while remaining balanced every year.

Starting with the 2017/18 season, Martin assumes the music directorship of the Queens Symphony Orchestra in New York. He is excited to be performing music for the most ethnically diverse community in the world. 

Martin’s ability to inspire the orchestra and deliver exciting, polished and powerful performances results in enthused audiences and many sold out concerts. He has been called “amazing, supremely gifted” and “an incomparable, unique and perhaps irreplaceable asset” by the press. http://martinmajkut.com/