Charles Robert Stephens
Bill O’Reilly Baritone

Charles Robert Stephens career spans a wide variety of roles and styles in opera and concert music. His performances show "a committed characterization and a voice of considerable beauty." (Opera News) At the New York City Opera he recently sang the role of Professor Friedrich Bhaer in the New York premiere of Adamo's Little Women, and was hailed by The New York Times as a "baritone of smooth distinction." He has been praised by audiences and critics alike for his "impeccable diction," communicative abilities and musical sensitivity.

Mr. Stephens has sung on numerous occasions at Carnegie Hall with Opera Orchestra of New York. Since his debut as Marcello in La Bohème, Mr. Stephens' New York City Opera roles include Frank in Die Tote Stadt, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, and Germont in La Traviata.

Mr. Stephens' operatic roles include Rigoletto, Amonasro, Germont, Rodrigo, Count di Luna, Gianni Schicchi, Tonio, Enrico, Sharpless and many others, with leading opera companies throughout the U.S. and abroad. An accomplished recitalist, Mr. Stephens has sung in chamber music performances and recitals throughout the United States in a variety of works. Among Mr. Stephens' featured concert roles are Elijah, the Brahms Requiem, Messiah, and the Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan Williams with which he marked his Spoletto debut in 2004.

In addition to taking part in several world premieres at Lincoln Center and throughout the country, he has also distinguished himself as a Bach and Handel singer, singing the great cantatas and passions each year with such ensembles as the New York Collegium, the Maryland Handel Festival, the Fairfield Orchestra, and New York's Sacred Music in a Sacred Space. Mr. Stephens has performed a wide range of orchestral works with the Hartford Symphony, Colorado Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, American Classical Orchestra, the symphony orchestras of Montevideo, Uruguay, Mexico and others.

Charles Robert Stephens can be heard on the Ventadorn, Nonsuch, and Harmonia Mundi labels; his most recent recording is of the Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs on the Avie label, entitled Heaven to Earth.

Ross Hauck Narrator TENOR

A resident of Seattle, WA, lyric tenor Ross Hauck has won acclaim for his artistry in concert and opera work throughout the country. Recent opera work includes roles with Sacramento Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Tacoma Opera, and Aspen Opera Theater, in roles such as as Almaviva in Barbiere di Siviglia and Belmonte in Entfuhrung aus dem Serail. This past May Ross was featured on a recording with Maestro Gerard Schwarz on the Naxos label. Other opera highlights include premiering and recording new roles in operas by American composers Libby Larsen and John Musto. Concert appearances have been with the National Symphony, Tanglewood Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and others. Recital highlights include the Ravinia Festival, the New York Festival of Song, The Southeastern Festival of Song, and the Schubert Club in St. Paul. Upcoming work this season includes debuts with Opera Idaho, the Early Music Guild in Seattle, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, the Bellevue Philharmonic, the Walla Walla Symphony, numerous concert series in the Northwest, as well as recital appearances in Seattle, Walla Walla, and Cincinnati. Ross is an alumnus of the Wolf Trap Opera Company and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Ross enjoys programming and performing innovative song programs, often for various sacred concert series. Ross is also a cellist and pianist, and in his spare time is involved in ministry. Ross is happily married to his beautiful wife, Laura, a soprano and voice teacher. They live in Issaquah with their newborn twin boys, Daniel and Benjamin.

Amy Bils/Signe Mortensen, Andrea Mackris, Soprano
Signe Mortensen ANdrea Mackris SOPRANO

Signe has quickly made her vocal and theatrical mark in the Pacific Northwest and beyond since returning to her native home in 2002. Some of her roles include Musetta in La Boheme (Bellevue Opera), Pamina in Magic Flute (Skagit Opera), Micaela in Carmen (Opera Pacifica), Frasquita in Carmen (Tri-Cities Opera), Anne Page in Merry Wives of Windsor (TCO), Adele in Die Fledermaus (TCO), Gretel in Hansel and Gretel (TCO), Mrs Gobineau in The Medium (Puget Sound Opera), Saffi in Gypsy Baron, Sylva in Gypsy Baron, Title role in La Perichole (Hans Wolf Productions), Yum-Yum in Mikado (Skagit Opera), Gianetta in Gondoliers (Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan), Josephine in HMS Pinafore (Northwest Savoyards), and Buffy in the West Coast premiere of Black Water (Off-Center Opera). She is also a member of the Black Box Opera Ensemble in Seattle. Most recently, she was seen as Micaela in Carmen with Skagit Opera, sang Anna in Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill at UW Opera Theater as a guest artist and toured as Mimi in La Boheme for Seattle Opera previews. Signe studies with Erich Parce of Bellevue, WA.

Kris Falk Conductor
Kris Falk is a composer and conductor who specializes in 20th- and 21st-century repertoire.  He has conducted the works of Carter, Ligeti and Denisov, among others, and he was the conductor for the world premiere of Elizabeth Hoffman’s two-act-opera, Job’s Wife.  Mr. Falk received a Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Music Composition form the University of Washington, and he holds a Doctorate in Music Composition from Stanford University.  His first opera, Trial of the Clown, based on the pursuit and trial of notorious serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, was completed as part of his studies at Stanford.

Igor Keller Composer
Igor is a little-known tenor saxophone player who lives in Belltown, a district of Seattle noted for its restaurants, bars, bums, crazy people, crazy bums and occasional gunplay.      

THE BELLTOWN CHAMBER SYMPHONY & CHORUS
Legend has it that the orchestra was first formed after a group of music-minded early Seattleites fashioned instruments from the massive pine trees that grew in abundance on William Nathaniel Bell’s land claim near the site of present-day downtown.  Contemporary accounts of their concerts assert that for the first 30 years of their existence, the only piece in the group’s repertoire was Strauss’s “Blue Danube Waltz.”  It was that work that serenaded Belltown residents as they watched the progress of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire with a mixture of awe and glee.  The fire ended up destroying all of Pioneer Square and some of the surrounding area, but left Belltown and its orchestra untouched and mocking the misfortunes of the homeless Pioneer Square lumber barons.  There is no indication that the ensemble expanded its music library until 1907, when it was booked at the Denny Hotel, then located high atop a hill that was being washed away at the behest of the delusional Scotsman, R.H. Thompson.  Using a set of parts that were found in the street, the orchestra staged a highly-unpopular concert version of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, Hansel und Gretel, for Sunday afternoon concerts in the hotel’s salon.  By the time all musicians had mastered their parts, the Denny Hotel was forced to close so that it could be washed into Puget Sound along with the rest of Denny Hill.  For that occasion, the “Blue Danube Waltz” was once again rolled out, but since it was first introduced to Seattle audiences, someone had gone to the trouble to pen some lyrics.  A chorus was dragooned to sing them, and the two groups have been inseparable from that day forward.  And it was a passionate love of the “Blue Danube Waltz” that made the union all possible.

Since that time, the Belltown Chamber Symphony and Chorus has taken on much more talented musicians and singers.  The current organization maintains such a high standard of artistic excellence that its Belltown musical forebears would be ashamed at their own incompetence to be in the same room with them, if it were possible to raise the dead and coordinate schedules.  Over the years, with the guidance of many visionary music directors (who all died under mysterious circumstances), the Belltown Chamber Symphony & Chorus have evolved far beyond Strauss and Humperdinck, regularly tackling works by Eastern Europe’s smelliest, surliest composers.  Their recent concert tours have included triumphs in Auburn (1998), Darrington (2000), Auburn (again, in 2001), North Bend (2003) and Auburn (once more, in 2005). 

This will be the first performance of a piece by their neighbor, Igor Keller.