Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich has been praised by The San Francisco Chronicle for her “exuberant vitality”, “fearless technical precision”, “deep-rooted pathos” and “irrepressible musical splendor.” Ms. Scharich has performed more than 250 art songs in 13 languages and 40 roles in the operatic repertoire. In 2019 she sang in three premières: The world première of Laura Kaminsky’s Today it Rains (Opera Parallèle), the West Coast première of Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves (West Edge Opera) and the modern day premiere of Domenico Freschi’s 1680 opera Ermelinda (ArsMinerva.) Scharich’s recordings include: In meinem Himmel: The Mahler Song Cycles (2018), To my Distant Beloved, with pianist Jeffrey LaDeur (2020), Nepomuceno Overseas, with pianist Ricardo Ballestero (2021) and David Conte’s Everyone Sang (2018) kindrascharich.com

Bradley Kynard, no stranger to Bay Area audiences has performed the baritone solos in Carmina Burana with GG Symphony and the role of Tamerlano (Tamerlano) with Handel Opera Project. He recorded multiple roles in Wold’s (Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil).  He created the role of Don Ramiro in (Xochitl and the Flowers) Opera Parallele and performed in the company’s production of (Trouble in Tahiti). He’s sung with the SFO chorus for 14 seasons.

Charlotte Fanvu is thrilled to return to Opera Parallele as Young Sophia in Sophia’s Forest! Last year, she performed the role of Meg Weathers in Opera Parallele’s Everest: A Graphic Novel Opera. The 12-year-old San Francisco native began her vocal training at 6 years old with the Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco and enjoys singing, dancing, and acting. Charlotte is also an aspiring baker and hopes to find a way to combine her passions for the performing and culinary arts when she grows up.

Samantha Fung-Lee, soprano, has been a member of the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) for eleven years. As part of SFGC’s Premier Ensemble, she has performed on many stages including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. Her time as a soloist confirms a deep interest in the pursuit of music in college and beyond. While singing is her passion, she also balances challenging academics as a junior at Lowell High School.

Victoria Ko, soprano, joined the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) at age four and has been a soprano in SFGC’s Premier Ensemble for six seasons. She is currently a senior at Stanford Online High School. Victoria has performed at The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, London’s Windsor Castle, the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and many more. In her free time, she enjoys travelling, cooking, snorkeling, and playing games with friends.

Hannah Moscovitch is considered one of the strongest playwriting voices in Canada. Her work has won multiple awards, most recently the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama. She was the first playwright to win the Trillium Book Award in the prize’s twenty-seven year history for This is War, a play premiered by Tarragon Theatre in 2013, which also won the Toronto Critic’s Award for Best Canadian Play. Moscovitch’s other writing for the stage includes Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story co-created with Ben Caplan and Christian Barry (winner of a Fringe First and a Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and nominated for six 2018 Drama Desk Awards in NY), Bunny (premiered at Stratford Festival and winner of a Toronto Critic’s Award for Best Canadian Play), What a Young Wife Ought to Know (premiered by Halifax’s Neptune and 2b theatre company (nominated for the Masterworks Award and a Dora Mavor Moore Best Touring Production Award), as well as The Russian Play and Essay, both of which won awards at SummerWorks Performance Festival. Beecher and Moscovitch have collaborated on three opera projects to date. Most recently, their work Sky on Swings premiered at the Philadelphia Opera. Their first collaboration, I Have No Stories to Tell You, premiered with Gotham Chamber Opera in 2014 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was staged in 2017 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of the O17 festival.

Conductor, Nicole Paiement is widely acclaimed for her interpretations of contemporary operas. As Founder and Artistic Director of Opera Parallèle (OP) in San Francisco, Mo. Paiement has conducted many new productions, commissions and world premieres including Laura Kaminsky’s Today it Rains; John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby; Blanchard’s Champion; Dove’s Flight; Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness; Osvaldo Goljov’s Ainadamar and John Rea’s reorchestration of Wozzeck. Most recently Paiement conducted OP’s new film production Everest – A Graphic Novel Opera by Joby Talbot, a work she originally premiered on stage at The Dallas Opera. An active guest conductor, Mo. Paiement made her debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 with Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and at Opéra de Montréal with the Canadian premiere of Benjamin’s Written on Skin in 2020. Other guest conducting engagements have brought her to Fort Worth Symphony, Atlanta Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Monterey Jazz Festival, and the Hollywood Bowl. Upcoming engagements include a concert performance with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in January 2022, followed by her UK premiere in November 2022 at the English National Opera. Paiement will return to London in June 2023 to conduct Talbot’s Everest with the BBC Symphony at the Barbican Center. Mo. Paiement will also return to the Dallas Opera, where she is Principal Guest Conductor in April 2022 and to Opéra de Montréal in 2023. In addition to being a leader in contemporary opera, Paiement is also a specialist in early 20th Century French music and regularly conducts music from the Baroque and Classical repertoire.

As Creative Director and Stage Director for Opera Parallèle, Brian Staufenbiel has directed and spearheaded the conceptual designs of the company’s productions since its founding in 2010. Specializing in multimedia, immersive, and interdisciplinary productions, he actively works across a wide range of artistic disciplines collaborating with film and media designers, choreographers and dancers, circus and fabric artists, and designer fabricators. His progressive approach to stagecraft has garnered critical acclaim for many of the company’s productions, including Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Glass’ Orphée and Les Enfant Terribles, Golijov’s Ainadamar, Berg’s Wozzeck, Davies’ The Lighthouse, Blanchard’s Champion and Dove’s Flight. Mr. Staufenbiel ‘s recent productions include Elektra with Minnesota Opera, a new film of Dove’s Flight with Seattle Opera, and productions for the online festival season of the Sun Valley Music Festival. His 2016 production of Das Rheingold with Minnesota Opera was named a Star Tribune Classical Music pick of the decade and was reprised at Arizona Opera and at L’Opéra de Montréal. Upcoming projects include the creation of a new work for Fort Worth Opera, and directing a documentary about the life of Frederica Von Stade with Paper Wings Films.

Jessica Bejarano is the founder and music director of the San Francisco Philharmonic! She also serves as music director of ELM Youth Orchestra, assistant conductor of Opera Parallèle and music director at Escuela Bilingue Internationale. Jessica is a regular guest conductor with the Antonio Soler Orquestra in Spain and has guest conducted in the Czech Republic, Venezuela, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Russia. She has held conducting positions with numerous orchestras throughout the Bay Area and United States. Jessica was named KQED Arts’ Bay Brilliant Top 10 Artists of 2018, was featured by PBS NewsHour as an emerging female conductor to watch and recently featured on NBC’s The Today Show with Natalie Morales as the “Woman Breaking Barriers as a Trailblazing Symphony Conductor.”